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BL 240 .S34 1926 

Sajous, Charles E. de M. 
1852-1929. 

Strength of religion as 
shown by science 


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https://archive.org/details/strengthofreligi00sajo 






































From painting by Edelfelt 


LOUIS PASTEUR 


“THe Mosr Perrecr Man Wuo Has Ever ENTERED THE 


Kincpom or Science.” (London Stendard.) 


“Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal, 


and who obeys it; ideal of art, ideal of science, ideal of the 


gospel virtues.” (From address by Louis Pasteur.) 





reneth of Religion — 


4 <at OF PR 
Keo 


Shown BS Science - 


FACILITATING ALSO HARMONY WITHIN, 
AND UNITY AMONG, VARIOUS 
FAITHS 


BY 


CHARLES E. deM. SAJOUS, M.D., Sc.D., LL.D. 


Professor of Endocrinology in the University of Pennsyl- 
vania Graduate School of Medicine; Officer of the Legion 
of Honor and of the Academy, France; Fellow of 
the American Philosophical Society, etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


PHILADELPHIA: 
F, A. DAVIS COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 
1914-16 CHERRY STREET 


COPYRIGHT, 1926 
BY 
F. A. DAVIS COMPANY 





Copyright, Great Britain. All Rights Reserved 


PRINTED IN U.S.A. 
PRESS OF 
F. A. DAVIS COMPANY 
PHILADELPHIA, PA, 


IN LOVING MEMORY 
OF 


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PREFACE. 


a press of the country and many 

magazines have repeatedly, in recent 
years, called attention to the tidal wave of 
immorality and crime which our former 
Ambassador to Italy, Mr. Richard Wash- 
burn Child, has fittingly termed the “great 
American scandal.’”’ Despite these urgent 
warnings, and due perhaps to the material 
prosperity heralded on all sides, very little 
if anything that is evident has been accom- 
plished so far to stem the evil tide, other- 
wise than through police authorities which 
are gradually being overwhelmed. Espe- 
cially deplorable is the fact that a very large 
proportion of evil doers, now over one mil- 
lion strong, consists of the youth of the 
country, both boys and girls. 

This book would never have appeared if 
it had had nothing but familiar facts to con- 
vey. Indeed, its object is to submit that 
failure will probably result from the pre- 
ventive measures now proposed, to point out 
what appear to be the flaws standing in the 
way of success, and to submit a more promis- 


[5] 


PREFACE. 


ing foundation for protective efforts on be- 
half of our growing generation of children. 

President Coolidge and several investiga- 
tors have rightly urged that religious in- 
fluence alone appeared as the remedy for 
the prevailing evils. We cannot, however, 
overlook the fact that religion, enjoying all 
freedom as it does in the United States, has 
failed to prevent the extraordinary develop- 
ment of immorality and crime which is be- 
setting society at the present time. Nor 
can it be denied that religion is steadily los- 
ing its hold on all classes of society; that 
dissensions in various denominations are 
weakening its influence and supplying ample 
ammunition to its enemies; that the Scopes 
trial aggravated materially the situation by 
exposing religion to ridicule; and_ finally, 
that something is demanded today to illus- 
trate its actual strength when the elucida- 
tive power of science is taken into account. 

Analysis of the question as a whole sug- 
gests two important queries: Is it religion 
itself which is failing us, or is it the manner 
in which it is being interpreted? Are all 
the dissensions referred to due to defects in 
the religious structure itself or are they of 


[6 ] 


PREFACE. 


man’s own creation? As will be shown in 
the present volume, the loss of prestige of 
religion today is entirely due to man-made 
defects which are strictly susceptible to con- 
trol and rectification. In other words, it 
will be submitted that religion itself, mean- 
ing thereby all creeds which accept God as 
the Supreme Being, has never been on a 
stronger foundation than it is today, thanks 
to the active support it is receiving from 
science. 

If the Scopes trial served any useful pur- 
pose, it was that of demonstrating the wide- 
spread lack of information concerning the 
higher aspects of Biblical knowledge in its 
relation to science. Had the late Mr. Bryan 
given due attention to this phase of religious 
thought, he might have reached a conclusion 
similar to one submitted by myself in 1909 
in a Commencement Address to the effect 
that: “What religion is teaching through 
faith, science is gradually proving through 
facts, thus unveiling itself as a Divine revela- 
tion.” He would have learned that science 
is already contributing so much to our 
knowledge that an insight into its trend may 
already be gleaned: That of eventually 


[7] 





PREFACE. 


placing religion as a whole on a foundation 
beyond the reach of any militant aggression. 

Another conclusion would have suggested 
itself to Mr. Bryan and his followers, if a 
survey of the whole field involved had in- 
spired their attitude towards science in its 
relations to religion. This is that the views 
of Darwin and the interpretation of evolu- 
tion of the second half of the last century 
including the so-called “monkey theory” of 
man’s origin, do not represent the true posi- 
tion of science today. 

As a distinguished Episcopalian dignitary, 
Bishop Manning, of New York, stated in a 
sermon delivered in February, 1924: “The 
view that science is in antagonism with re- 
ligion, or that it excludes belief in the super- 
natural, is old-fashioned and out of date. A 
quarter of a century ago such a view was 
held widely, but science has left it behind. 
It belongs to a day that is past.” As will 
be submitted in the following pages in fact, 
evolution is one of the greatest elucidative 
contributions to religion of modern times. 

The attitude of science in our day towards 
religion is anything but antagonistic. This 
was well expressed by Dr. K. F. Mather, 


[8 ] 


PREFACE. 


professor of geology at Harvard University, 
when he wrote in the New York Times of 
July 21, 1925: “Many of us believe that 
science is truly discovering the processes of, 
and the methods which God, the Spiritual 
power and eternal force has used and is us- 
ing to effect His vill in nature,” while sim- 
ultaneously showing that “the law of life 
ryloved@= ss t's regardless ofsect or creed’’ 
—to which I would add “or race,” as a re- 
sult of an intimate contact with human suf- 
fering of nearly fifty years. 

The very identity of God and His pres- 
ence in all nature as the Supreme Architect 
and His immediate participation in our 
destiny, both terrestrial and spiritual, is pro- 
gressively being demonstrated by science. 
It is casting aside, through the wonders of 
the invisible universal ether, all philosophical 
doctrines which denied God on the plea that 
spirituality, an imponderable entity, can 
only be based on a blind belief. The stu- 
pendous manifestations of intelligence in all 
nature which led even Huxley, the renowned 
agnostic, to declare himself “utterly unable 
to conceive the existence of matter if there 
is no mind to feature that existence’ are 


[9] 


PREFACE, 


rapidly being accounted for. As we shall 
see in the following pages, the creation of 
the universe, of matter, of our solar system, 
of the earth, and of all living things includ- 
ing ourselves, through the universal ether, 
imposes the need of God in the whole phy- 
sical domain, the cosmos, to account for any 
of the phenomena known to us. In other 
words, modern science actually proves God’s 
existence in nature, and the soundness of 
faith in Him. 

Science is doing even more for religious 
thought today: It is acting as beacon for 
the great pathway to God, the Bible. Thirty 
years ago, a well known French writer, Mr. 
Brunetiere, published an article in the Revue 
des Deux Mondes (1894), on the “Bank- 
ruptcy of Science” in its relations to religion. 
This was still in the hey-day of misinter- 
preted evolution theories, and religion fared 
very badly in the fray. Being in Paris at 
the time, engaged in editorial and research 
work, I sought to ascertain the causes of the 
evident vulnerability of religious teachings 
to such attacks and the disquieting growth 
of atheism it fostered. Ample evidence was 
obtained to the effect that the translations 


[ 10 ] 


PREFACE. 


of the Hebrew text published in the Bibles 
now used contained errors, especially in Gene- 
sis, which seriously perverted its main teach- 
ings. 

Had the false interpretations given con- 
veyed a lofty meaning such as one would ex- 
pect from the Scriptures, criticisms would 
not have been invited; the opposite, how- 
ever, was the case. Many teachings in- 
compatible with elementary logic served as 
they did in the recent Scopes trial to pro- 
voke derision and irrefutable ridicule. For 
various reasons, the Hebrew scholars who 
translated the original text into English or 
other languages should not be criticized: 
The limitations of the Hebrew vocabulary, 
the peculiar grouping of words as illustrated 
in the third chapter of this book, and other 
difficulties, caused them to interpret it as 
best they could. As we shall see in the 
present volume, modern science was needed 
to make it possible to understand the original 
text and to give it its true and elevated 
meaning. 

I had been inclined to look upon my own 
laborious analysis of the Hebrew text, now 
of thirty-two years’ standing, with consider- 


[11] 





PREFACE, 


able misgiving. Fortunately, an eminent 
Hebrew scholar, the Rev. Dr. C. P. Fagnani, 
professor of Hebrew at the Union Theologi- 
cal Seminary, of New York, published in 
1925, a book (“‘The Beginnings of History 
According to the Jews,’’ A. and C. Boni, 
publishers, New York) in which the erroneous 
translations in Bibles now in general use are 
clearly defined. Not only did it confirm 
the errors I had found, but revealed others 
for which due credit is given in the text. 
Another of the essential features which 
science has served indirectly to elucidate 
has been the identification of the spirit (the 
“soulspirit’” as the Hebrew text terms it) 
from our physical body. By showing that 
man was a product of evolution and that in 
keeping with all animals inferior to him he 
was formed of the same cosmic ether or 
universal matter as they were, science made 
it possible for me to establish, by a process 
of elimination, those qualities of mankind 
which are of Divine origin, and to connect 
them with the human attribute we term 
“conscience.” The importance of the isola- 
tion of this mental factor from our animal 
instincts lies in the fact that it brings into 


[ 12 ] 


PREFACE. 
prominence those qualities in the child which 
enable us to guide his destinies in the path 
of righteousness almost from the cradle. ‘The 
far reaching meaning of this feature as a 
preventive of moral decadence is self evi- 
dent. 

The main topics analyzed in this volume 
appear to me to offer a new foundation for 
fruitful endeavor. At no time in the history 
of the United States has the horizon ap- 
peared darker in all attributes which jointly 
represent all that is virtuous and noble in 
mankind. It is not a period for strife, there- 
fore, among the millions of men and women 
whose aims are lofty in every sense, and par- 
ticularly those in whom religion serves as 
beacon for the soul; we need harmony at any 
cost, 

The newer interpretations submitted, by 
bringing to light their unsuspected origin, 
should eliminate all major causes of dis- 
sension. It is with due earnestness and re- 
gard for all concerned, therefore, that I 
would plead that such terms as “funda- 
mentalism” and “modernism” be dropped, not 
merely because they are confusing and mis- 
leading, but owing to their tendency to 


[ 13 | 





PREFACE. 


breed discord at a time when unity and 
cooperation are imperatively demanded. 

Hence the fact that the words “funda- 
mentalism” and “modernism” will not be em- 
ployed in this book. “Literalism” will, how- 
ever, be used to distinguish, when necessary, 
literal interpretation of the Biblical text 
from other versions suggested by the modi- 
fied translations of the Hebrew text and 
those branches of science which tend to eluci- 
date their Biblical meaning. 

A development which would greatly ad- 
vance the cause of religion would be the crea- 
tion in all theological seminaries of a scien- 
tific department which would include at least 
geology, paleontology and general biology. 
Working in harmony with the philological 
department, religious thought would soon be 
placed on a very solid foundation. E:ndow- 
ments for such chairs would enable clergy- 
men to obtain an education on broad lines 
through which they could prove the solidity 
of religious teachings which must now be 
accepted on faith. Religion, thus sustained, 
would soon become unassailable. 

All other measures submitted for the pro- 
tection of our growing generation of children 


[ 14 ] 


PREFACE. 


against the prevailing wave of immorality 
will be considered in the subject matter of 
this volume. 

As over twenty branches of science are 
incidentally referred to in this volume besides 
the comparative study of the Hebrew text, 
it was deemed advantageous to the reader, 
even though colloquial language is used, to 
employ italics freely, to facilitate compre- 
hension of the more important deductions 
submitted. 


CHARLES EK. DEM. SAgous. 


Philadelphia, Pa. 
March 1, 1926. 


[ 15 | 


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CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 


Tue ImrerRAtTive NEED oF DEMONSTRATING THE 
ACTUAL STRENGTH OF RELIGION, 


PAGE 
Juvenile Depravity Fostered by Religious Dissensions due 
to Misinterpretation of Biblical Teachings ......... 19 
Religion and Science as Allies in the Development of 
RVCLISTOUAMELC TIO W ICCD Gry cere tee man rn ras, eee, 33 


GHAR TERI. 
Tue Main Causes or ATHEISM. 


Erroneous Interpretation of the Biblical Text as a Cause 


OL MEP LICISII WT fey Rian ete oS OTLS. is Cae ne rate els vive hee Al 
Errors of Translation from the Hebrew Text which Per- 

Vert; Luce ean. Of} CrENICSIS! , a.e8 Fos oe eee AT 
The Monkey Theory a Myth, but Evolution Sound and 

aden iie tner DIDIGR Ly eee ect yy ae et ere ae 54 
The Animal Body of Man not the Image of God ........ 69 


CHAPTER III. 


EvouuTion As Proor tHat Man 1s DIVINE. 
Man, of All Animals, Alone Endowed with a Divine 


STE Ue ares Se Me NUE, TG nr ales cere fe tee «oe 86 
Man’s Divine Spirit as the Source of his Superior In- 

felecte and. Noblers Instincts@ otc... os eee es ec. 96 
Eve not the “First Woman,” but the Divine Spirit which 

a Child Receives through its Mother ...... REA, 111 


CHAPTER IV. 


Tue Divine CREATIVE AND Dynamic MeEpDIUM 
In NATURE. 


The Presence of God in Matter as Sustained by 
ECA ESSA Vg appngre Se ity fie Wn eA aalgad eco OM a eG A My de 121 


‘ [17] 





CONTENTS. 


PAGE 
The Divine Creation of the Universe including our Solar 
System as Sustained by Sciences. nee 131 


Calamities not Attributable to God as Punishment or 
Retribution 0). 3. < hs s oe ee ee eee 140 


CHAPTER V. 


Tuer Divine Untiversat Mepium as THE ETHER 
oF Mopern SCIENCE. 


The Ether as the Medium out of which all Matter is 


Formed. 3163 2640s eee ee ee 146 
The Ether as the Active Medium in the Genesis of 

Mankind 34 .255.0.0)c3 ee 157 
The Ether as the Source of Intelligence in all Animals 

and -. Plants: 0.6. 152 De eae het ee ee 171 


CHAPTER VI. 
Screncr ConFirMs THE SOUNDNEsS OF RELIGION. 


Science Removes the Causes of Discord in Christian 


Churches: 4.3 fe ee ee ee ee ee 182 
The Human Inheritance of Animal Instincts as the Cause 
of ‘Crime*and eIlmmorality = 29) a eee ee 199 


CHAPTER VII. 


Tuer ConscrlieNCcCE AS THE INTERNAL VOICE OF 
THE DIVINE Spirit. 


The Divine Spirit, manifested through the Conscience, as 


the Moral Guide of “Mankind: 2...) ee 217 
Cultivation of the Divine Spirit in the Child ............ 229 
The Conscience as a Factor in Measures for the Preven- 

tion: of: Tmmorality soe ren vives slo si ceehetcie ste cee 237 


[18 ] 


CHAPTER I. 


THE IMPERATIVE NEED OF DEMON- 
STRATING THE ACTUAL STRENGTH 
OF RELIGION. 


JUVENILE DEPRAVITY FOSTERED BY RELIGIOUS 
DISSENSIONS DUE TO MISINTERPRETATION 
OF BIBLICAL TEACHINGS. 


RIME and immorality are increasing in 
the United States at a rate such as to 
render active repressive efforts an urgent 
necessity. Recently our former ambassador 
to Italy, Mr. R. W. Child,! after a careful 
study in the country at large of what he 
terms “the great American scandal” and “our 
crime tide,’’ quotes the 1923 report of the 
American Bar Association to the effect that 
one hundred thousand lives had been de- 
stroyed by murder during the ten year period 
prior to 1923 and that the rate was increasing 
yearly, the number of murders in 1924 having 
exceeded eleven thousand. Comparison with 
other countries, England and France in par- 
ticular, showed a striking difference. ‘There 


1R, W. Child: Saturday Evening Post; weekly serial, Aug. 
1 to Nov. 14, 1925. 


[ 19 ] 


NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. 


had been, for instance, but two hundred mur- 
ders in England and Wales in 1923, accord- 
ing to the same writer. Taking into account 
the difference in population, this shows that 
there were twenty-two murders in the United 
States to one in England and Wales. 
Chicago, which has been termed the “crime 
capital” of this country, averages one murder 
daily to one in a fortnight in London, a city 
over twice its size. 

The most deplorable feature of the whole 
situation is that the tidal wave of crime is in 
great part due to the youth of the country, 
our boys and girls. A recent investigation 
of the condition of morals in New York City 
schools “was enough to shock the investiga- 
tors,” according to Mr. Child, a fact which 
applies as well to other cities. A former 
New York prosecutor is quoted as stating 
that eight out of ten offenders are in their 
teens or their twenties. Mrs. Mary E. Ham- 
ilton, head of the New York Women’s Police 
Department, speaks in the same vein, immor- 
ality among the young having reached de- 
plorable proportions. It is plain that unless 
remedial measures become effective very soon, 
the present generation of children and ado- 


[ 20] 





RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS FOSTER IMMORALITY. 





lescents will in great part be lost in the pit of 
criminality. 

Banditry, with the ever-ready revolver 
handy to kill if need be, also flourishes as it 
has at no time. In some states, in fact, vigi- 
lantes are paid two thousand five hundred 
dollars for a dead bandit, but only one thou- 
sand dollars if he be brought in alive! These 
are indeed reminiscences of the ‘49 days 
of California, when gold attracted, among 
others, most of the scoundrels in the land. 

Here again, however, youths, boys and 
often girls of the bobbed-hair type prevail. 
Mr. Child writes, in this connection: “My 
astonishment is great at the sincerity, the 
vehemence, the conviction of judges, wardens, 
prosecutors, police chiefs, patrolmen, detec- 
tives, old professional criminals with whom 
I have talked, and with citizens who are 
writing me from various corners of the 
United States. Their voice is one voice. 
It says: the old criminal is outdone; today 
the criminal population which probably 
numbers in eacess of one million is made 
up in large part of girls and boys. Parents, 
especially those who favor the “era of un- 
restrained youth,” should now fully realize 


[ 21 ] 


ee ————————————————————————— 


NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. 





its consequences, particularly in view of the 
fact that by no means all the young crim- 
inals are the children of poor parents. 

The World War is often blamed for this 
depravity, but if this were warranted, a 
similar state of things would prevail in 
other far more sorely tried countries than 
our own, where poverty is more common 
than it is here and lack of employment af- 
fects families by the hundreds of thousands, 
as is now the case in England. Nor are 
veterans of the World War numerous among 
the criminals captured. In fact, the very 
youth of the criminal class of our days elim- 
inates in a great measure these veterans, 
most criminals being too young to have 
taken part in the conflict. 

Judge Gary, Chairman of the United 
States Steel Corporation, in an appeal to 
the public to help in checking crime and 
rightly urging active support of the new 
National Crime Commission, states that “a 
large portion of the crime in this country 
is committed by people who have lately come 
to these shores from foreign countries.” A 
similar statement is made by Mr. Child on 
the basis of statistics obtained from five 


[ 22 ] 


RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS FOSTER IMMORALITY. 


cities. ‘The data bear, in Mr. Child’s words, 
“on one hundred and twenty-five persons 
charged with murder or manslaughter— 
twenty-five random cases from each city in 
a specified period. The total of white 
persons so charged not foreign-born is only 
twenty. Italian born and the children of 
Italian immigrants score twenty-six. Russia 
furnished nineteen. Various countries of 
Central and Southern Europe, Greece, Aus- 
tria, Roumania, Bulgaria, and so on, fur- 
nished thirty-five; negroes, thirteen; Ireland, 
England, Scandinavia, Germany and France 
and one oriental country, twelve. If any- 
one cares to figure out the comparative 
strength of each element in our population, 
these figures are immediately convincing.” 
I am afraid, however, that some error of 
computation in which the use of “twenty- 
five random cases”’ is the misleading factor, 
mars the deduction reached by Mr. Child. 
According to statistics of twenty cities col- 
lected by the New York Times and pub- 
lished in an editorial article in its issue 
of September 6, 1925 (reproduced below, 
slightly rearranged in order to include all 
cities mentioned), it is in cities in which 


[ 23 ] 


LL SE 
NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. 


—_— 


Chart showing that Cities which contain the smallest number 
of foreign-born give the lowest murder rate. 


PERCENTAGE OF PERCENTAGE OF 


CITIES MURDER RATE. FOREIGN-BORN. 
Memphis Sr was tee eee 65.0 3.5 
Jacksonville <.< 9.4... 2) Ghee 61.7 3.0 
Nashville. o.'. 2 a eee 38.7 2.0 
Louisville: 33 35.6 4.5 
New, Orleans”. eee 29.9 7.0 
St.) Louis) A. .ec te ee 2 eee 26.1 13.0 
Mobile 23.5. 7S ee eee 23.3 3.0 
Savannah* |... oc eee ee 21.2 4.0 
Cleveland (>... 3) eee eee 18.1 30.0 
Sacramento... neece  eeee 16.3 16.0 
Columbus:72.5' 9.52 on eee 15.6 7.0 
Washington,Ds) Cone 15.4 8.0 
New -York\City.-7 2 eee §.2 36.0 
Boston ..3 ine ee ae 4.2 32.0 
Paterson 3-7 ea es a oe 3.6 33.0 
Bridgeport 2252) ie eae 1.9 32.0 
Lowell SP een ran eee 17 34.0 
Portland; 9M ese 72a ee 1.4 20.0 
Rochester si sc: Maen? ee tae 1.2 24.0 
Scrantont:.2sis ot oe ae ee 1.2 20.0 


the foreign-born are least numerous that the 
highest murder rate occurs, while in prac- 
tically every instance ‘(the only exception 
being Cleveland) cities which contain a large 
proportion of foreign-born show a very low 
percentage of murders. This does not mean, 
however, that the children of foreigners, 
brought up in this country, ‘may not consti- 
tute a large proportion of the culprits. 
Many years of study in France have en- 
abled me to realize that in that country, at 


[ 24 ] 


RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS FOSTER IMMORALITY. 


least, honesty and straightforward dealing 
are the dominant virtues instilled in the 
child, whereas here, money-making, success 
in business, ete., are often the main topics 
upon which they are mentally fed through 
the current conversation of their elders in 
their homes, rich or poor. The children of 
foreigners who happen to become criminals 
here illustrate the contrast between the two 
kinds of home influence which in great meas- 
ure decide a child’s future morality. They 
are those who cast off the moral scruples of 
their “old people.” 

There is no doubt, however, that too many 
foreign criminals are allowed to enter the 
country, attracted by its wealth. Judge 
Gary recommends great care in the selection 
of foreigners admitted to the United States. 
From personal experience, police records or 
authorities should form the basis of inquiry 
by our consuls. Indeed, the two greatest 
scoundrels it has been my misfortune to meet 
were recommended to me, one by a foreign 
Minister of the Interior, the other by the 
Mayor of a foreign city. Magnates are often 
importuned by politicians for recommenda- 
tions, which they sometimes grant without 


[ 25 ] 


NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. 


ascertaining the past of the individuals rec- 
ommended. 

That the moral decadence is gradually, 
though stealthily dragging down the whole 
country itself, was clearly expressed by one 
of our most distinguished clergymen, Dr. 
Charles H. Parkhurst, when he remarked 
two years ago in the course of a sermon: 
“And I say unhesitatingly that the present 
tendency of our collective life is not up- 
ward . . . . and that while the durability 
of our American life and institutions is 
grounded in established character, it is a 
commodity that is not being turned out as 
it was two generations ago.’ Nor can any 
commonwealth endure, I might add, with 
depravity undermining its youth on all sides. 

A determined and virile effort is impera- 
tively necessary to turn the tide. How may 
this be accomplished ? 

President Coolidge, in an address before 
the biennial meeting of the Council of Con- 
gregational Churches, on October 20, 1925, 
urged that “religious influence alone ap- 
peared as the remedy for the evils that be- 
set society,’ and that he knew of “no politi- 
cal method of dealing with these difficulties.” 


[ 26 ] 





RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS FOSTER IMMORALITY. 


He said, moreover, that “the utmost in- 
genuity on the part of the police powers will 
be substantially all wasted, in an effort to 
enforce the law, if there does not exist a 
strong and vigorous determination on the 
part of the people to observe the law. Such 
a determination cannot be produced by the 
Government. My opinion is that it is fur- 
nished by religion.” Indeed, “if faith is set 
aside, the foundations of our institutions fail, 
the citizen is deposed from the high estate 
which he holds as amenable to a universal 
conscience, society reverts to a system of 
class and caste, and the Government instead 
of being imposed by reason from within is 
imposed by force from without. Freedom 
and democracy would give way to despotism 
and slavery. I do not know of any adequate 
support for our form of government except 
that which comes from religion.” 
Unfortunately, ample evidence is available 
to show that religion is rapidly losing its 
hold upon the masses. Protestant churches 
of practically all denominations complain of 
poor attendance, and devise measures to turn 
the tide—which refuses to turn—while news- 
papers and magazines reflect the doubt of 


[27 ] 


NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. 


many concerning the solidity of the whole 
religious structure. As a prominent teacher 
of Princeton Seminary, Dr. McMachen, ex- 
pressed it recently, “there exist the most 
fundamental divergences in the religious 
world of the present.” That they will con- 
tinue under present conditions there can be 
no doubt—to the great detriment of religious 
influence in all directions. 

The underlying cause of these dissensions, 
as indicated by a comprehensive personal 
study of the subject in all its aspects, is the 
self evident vulnerability of the first three 
chapters of Genesis particularly, to destruc- 
tive and unanswerable ridicule. Mr. Darrow, 
in the Scopes trial, utilized this regrettable 
situation to the best advantage. It brought 
out clearly Mr. Bryan’s inability to meet 
his attacks otherwise than by mere reitera- 
tions of his conviction that the statements 
in Genesis were literally those of God. This, 
of course, only served to accentuate the an- 
tagonism of persons having atheistic or 
agnostic tendencies. Simultaneously it sealed 
adversely, through the details heralded by 
the newspapers of the entire country, the 
fate of the lukewarm millions who are ever 


[ 28 ] 


RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS FOSTER IMMORALITY. 


ready to embrace a faith in which common 
sense will not have to be sacrificed. 

What the influence of Mr. Bryan’s atti- 
tude on scientists was can readily be im- 
agined. His writings denoted clearly (hav- 
ing declared, in fact, that “he neither knew 
nor cared anything about science’) that he 
had taken no pains to familiarize himself 
with modern knowledge concerning evolu- 
tion, most of which hardly dates back to the 
dawn of the present century. Basing his 
conclusions on obsolete beliefs, he used all 
his powers and influence to have evolution 
barred from tax-supported educational in- 
stitutions, as it is in Tennessee—a state of 
things which, according to Chancellor Hadley, 
of Washington University, of St. Louis, also 
threatens in from fifteen to twenty other 
states. Unfamiliar with modern progress 
on evolution, Mr. Bryan could not of course 
realize that he was starting a movement 
which, if successful, would eventually de- 
grade the United States to the lowest level 
of intellectuality among civilized nations. 

Indeed, most college bred men and women, 
and many others, know today that the 
“monkey ascent” of man (a myth, as we 


[ 29 ] 


NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. 


shall see) is but a tithe of the question of 
evolution, as a whole; and that the latter is 
one of the most productive divisions of our 
knowledge of agriculture, forestry, zoology, 
botany, medicine, bacteriology, sanitation, 
embryology, anatomy, physiology, biological 
chemistry, and other branches of biology 
normal and pathological, besides those con- 
nected directly with the development of the 
evolution of man and the lower animals,—ge- 
ology, paleontology and others. One can- 
not but wonder, in fact, how any legislature 
could pass a law so disastrous to the interests 
of public welfare and to the good name of 
the country at large. 

There is ground for kindly consideration, 
however, even in this direction. Indeed, fair 
play suggests a pointed question which should 
greatly mitigate criticism of any kind: Grant- 
ing that Genesis is a story which prompts 
mockery and thus cultivates enemies for all 
prevailing religions, Protestant, Roman Cath- 
olic and Jewish, what is there to replace it 
if it is eliminated on account of its defects? 

In answering this question we must bear 
in mind that we are dealing with the very 
foundation of religious thought, the identity 


[ 30 | 


RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS FOSTER IMMORALITY. 


of God Himself and all His works, the uni- 
verse, our solar system, our earth and all 
the living things it carries, including man. 
We must realize that its omission would com- 
promise the whole Christian doctrine by 
relegating God to the status of the Spen- 
cerian “unknowable” and, in consequence, the 
spirituality of the Father and of the Son, 
of us all in fact, to the limbo of oblivion, 
leaving to mankind, if anything, not much 
more than an animal carcass with its evil in- 
stincts and a mind itself derived from noth- 
ing higher than an evolutionary product of 
this same animal. ‘This, indeed, is all that 
unfamiliarity with the modern drift of evolu- 
tion could evolve. 

With nothing to replace Genesis and the 
consequences of its loss, we can understand 
that the literalists—those who, unaware of 
the steady accumulation of learning which 
would save the day in God’s own time— 
feared the consequences of the sacrifice. 

It is because of this underlying thought 
which, I believe, is that of the literalists, 
that I urged in the Preface, the aband- 
onment of the term “fundamentalists” and 
“modernists.” Indeed, thanks to contribu- 


[ 31 | 


NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. 


tions of science during the experimental 
period which succeeded, about the beginning 
of this century, the observation period of 
the nineteenth century, the day has come, in 
my opinion, when it is possible to show that 
Genesis, freed of errors of translation through 
the light shed upon it by science, affords a 
solid foundation for both Testaments. 

As such it is capable, while far more elevat- 
ing than the prevailing interpretation, strewn 
as it is with translation errors as we shall 
see, of meeting the urgent needs of our 
period. Being derived directly from the 
Hebrew text, it conveys more accurately 
God’s own inspirations. It will meet all 
needs, therefore, that literalists have desired 
to insure, while enabling them to form, with 
their normal colleagues of all kinds, theolo- 
gians, scientists, and laymen (the bulk of 
our citizens, we must not forget) whose 
higher motives and aims are similar, a fight- 
ing force quite capable of causing right to 
prevail over wrong. 

Harmony, under such conditions, would 
enable us, it seems to me, to meet President 
Coolidge’s hopes in so far, at least, as vigor- 
ous and sustained effort could do so. 


[ 82 ] 


RELIGION AND SCIENCE AS ALLIES. 


RELIGION AND SCIENCE AS ALLIES IN 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS 
KNOWLEDGE. 


The views submitted in the foregoing 
section, suggest that a cooperation of all 
churches and science could accomplish more 
than would desultory efforts of separate 
groups, as is now the case. It would un- 
doubtedly meet the approval of most scien- 
tists, and also of all religious communities, 
Christian and Jewish. As stated by Pro- 
fessor C. A. Ellwood, of the University of 
Missouri, in the 1924 opening address _be- 
fore the Yale Divinity School: “A new hope 
has come into the world—that science may 
unite with religion in the work of redeeming 
mankind.” 

In scientific circles the trend has long been 
towards religious philosophy and not against 
it. As expressed by Dr. L. T. More,! pro- 
fessor of physics at the University of Cincin- 
nati: ‘““The belief in God is the most general 
belief of all times. Most evolutionists indig- 
nantly deny atheism. And faith in God, 
whether it be the idol of the barbarian, the 


1],, T. More: “The Dogma of Evolution,” Princeton, 1924, 
p. 356. 


; [ 383 ] 


NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION, 


Inscrutable Power of Spencer and Fiske, or 
the Divine Spirit of the Christian or Jew, 
carries with it the conviction of a power which 
instituted natural law and self-consciousness 
of the human spirit.” 

The moral drift of religion and science is 
similar, even though the influence of science 
on morality has been a mooted point in the 
minds of many. In truth, those who in- 
criminate science are not familiar with its 
attitude in this respect nor with the mor- 
ality preached by scientists. ‘This, in fact, 
has been solidly established for many de- 
cades. Thus, thirty years ago, Dr. Charles 
Richet,! the eminent professor of physiology 
in the Paris Medical School, wrote: “‘On 
the whole, the morality taught by the church 
today is doubtless not very different from 
that taught by science. Whether it be up- 
held by science or religion, however, is only 
of historical interest. The essential point 
is that harmony and union between them 
prevail.” 

The trend towards cooperation has, in fact, 
been nurtured throughout centuries by scien- 
tists of the first order, among whom might 


1 Charles Richet: Revue Scientifique, January 12, 1895. 
[ 34 ] 


RELIGION AND SCIENCE AS ALLIES. 
be mentioned Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, 
Newton, Faraday, Leibnitz, Lord Kelvin 
and Pasteur. 

In the United States the tendency towards 
religio-scientific harmony has shown steady 
growth on lines emphasizing their kindred 
aims. Thus, Professor K. EF. Mather, head 
of the department of geology of Harvard, 
wrote recently: “Men of religion seek right- 
eousness; finding it, they also find the truth. 
The further along the two avenues of in- 
vestigation the scientist and the theologian 
go, the closer together they discover them- 
selves to be. Already many of them are 
marching shoulder to shoulder in their en- 
deavor to combine a trained and reasoning 
mind with a faithful and loving heart in 
every human individual and thus to develop 
more perfectly to mankind the image of 
God.” Professor Patton, of the department 
of geology of Dartmouth College, also 
wrote: “I repeat, there is no difference be- 
tween what is vital in science and what is 
vital in religion. In fact, underneath, science 
is religion, and religion 7s science.” 

Becoming reverence and humility is a trait 
of scientists comparable only to that of 


[ 35 ] 


NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. 


theologians. Professor Metcalf, of Johns 
Hopkins University, has urged, for instance, 
that “we should not attempt to guide God’s 
self-revelation into channels of our own 
ignorant choosing, but rather, humbly and 
in a wholly teachable spirit, to seek His 
thought and Himself in nature, in history, 
in the vision of Himself He has given to 
men of old and is still giving to the humble 
minded today.” According to Dean J. G. 
Lipman, of the College of Agriculture of 
the State University of New Jersey, “the 
men of science, in carrying on their work in 
a spirit of reverence and humility, try to in- 
terpret the great book of knowledge in order 
that the paths of man . . . . and the ways 
of society may be in better keeping with the 
Divine purpose.” 

The attitude of the great majority of 
scientific men today towards religion is well 
exemplified in a joint statement signed by 
many such to emphasize their stand. In 
this list occur the names of Presidents Angell, 
of Yale; Burton, of the University of 
Chicago; Osborne, of the American Museum 
of Natural History; Poteat, of Wake For- 
rest College; and Merriam, of the Carnegie 


[ 36 ] 


RELIGION AND SCIENCE AS ALLIES. 


Institute; also of Professors Coulter, of the 
University of Chicago; Pupin, of Columbia; 
Birkhog, of Harvard; Campbell, of Lick 
Observatory; Conklin, of Princeton; Welch, 
of Johns Hopkins, all scientists. The state- 
ment referred to included the following: 

“It is a sublime conception of God which 
is furnished by science, and one wholly con- 
sonant with the highest ideal of religion, 
when it represents Him as revealing Himself 
through countless ages in the development 
of the earth as an abode for man and in the 
age-long inbreathing of life into its constitu- 
ent matter, culminating in man, with his 
spiritual nature and all his godlike powers.” 

These examples, to which many could be 
added, clearly indicate the presence among 
scientists of many whose attitude towards 
religion presages active and sincere support 
from their side if active cooperation with 
theologians could be brought about. 

Similar dependence could be placed upon 
many prominent members of the clergy, 
Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish. 
Many were included in the joint statement 
quoted above. Among them were Bishops 
Manning and Lawrence, of the Episcopal 


[ 37 ] 


NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. 


Church; McConnell, of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church; Presidents Barbour, of the 
Rochester Theological Seminary and King, 
of the Oberlin Theological Seminary; also 
Professor Davis, of the Princeton Seminary. 
Bishop Manning declared in a sermon: 
‘There is no reason why religion should have 
any suspicion or fear of science. ‘There is 
nothing in the Christian faith that conflicts 
with the scientific theory of evolution. ‘To 
many of us this hypothesis seems to make 
clearer both the glory of the Creator and the 
naturalness of His revelation of Himself in 
the incarnation.” 

Cardinal Haynes added his recognition of 
the services of science in a recent address. 
“Tonight,” said this distinguished prelate, 
“we offer a tribute of praise and gratitude to 
our scientists, to those devoted servants of 
truth who dedicate their lives to the advance- 
ment of human knowledge.” Again, “there 
is a further acknowledgment we must make. 
Science—real, not false science—discloses to 
its followers a lofty ideal worthy of the reyv- 
erence of every man. This ideal is truth— 
always, everywhere, at any cost. Without 
selfishness or passion or prejudice, at the 


[ 38 | 


RELIGION AND SCIENCE AS ALLIES. 


sacrifice of health and wealth, of fame and 
friendship and life itself; the real scientist 
worships at truth’s altar, realizing, as the 
church teaches, that there can be no vital 
conflict or contradiction, between the truth 
revealed to man by God in the natural order 
and that made manifest by Him in the super- 
natural.” 

Rabbi M. H. Harris, in a sermon, likewise 
deemed science an elucidative factor. “Far 
from removing God from the universe, evolu- 
tion has tremendously advanced our concep- 
tion of the eternal source behind all. In- 
deed, divinity becomes a much more exalted 
conception. A being who could promulgate 
laws and processes so far reaching, taking 
eons of time gradually to unfold, must indeed 
be a being of power and wisdom sublime.” 
Rabbi Jacob Kohn, preaching on “The God 
of Truth in Science and Religion,” held that 
“true religion, adoring the God of truth, will 
bid science godspeed in its mighty task of 
conquering nature through knowledge, for 
it is convinced that nothing that science can 
discover within nature can suppress the pas- 
sion of the human soul for the God of 
nature.” 


[ 39 ] 


NEED OF SHOWING STRENGTH OF RELIGION. 


The three great faiths are thus represented 
among those who recognize the true role of 
science in its relation to religion. They 
surely provide the cohesive and uniform 
power which alone will insure success. 

Hope is about all that can be vouchsafed 
for the present. But any existing fear con- 
cerning the influence of science upon religion 
should be allayed. This I will attempt to 
do in the following chapters, adding a plea 
that if their tenets are convincing, every- 
thing be done to facilitate for us all, in view 
of the stupendous questions at stake and the 
responsibilities involved, compliance with 
Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians (I, 
1:10) when they were separating into vari- 
ous sects: 

“TI beseech you brethren by the name of 
our Lord Jesus Christ that ye all speak 


the same thing and that there be no 
divisions among you.” 


[ 40 ] 


CHAPTER II. 
THE MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


ERRONEOUS INTERPRETATION OF BIBLICAL 
TEXT AS A CAUSE OF ATHEISM. 


I’ the Dayton trial Mr. Darrow was re- 
peatedly referred to as an atheist. But 
he merely represents a large proportion of 
unbelievers in this country who refuse to 
accept illogical tenets as truths. Abusive 
criticism of their attitude is as unfair as it 
is futile. Milton may have said of atheism: 
“Of such doctrine never was there school 
But the heart of the fool, 
And no man therein doctor but himself.” 

But the great poet was a poor physician. 
Far better is it to seek the underlying cause 
of trouble and remove it. In the present 
connection, it is a disorder accentuated and 
perpetuated by well-meaning but misled de- 
fenders of religion, the literalists. 

One can hardly deny that in the Dayton 
trial, Mr. Bryan (in all kindness to him now 
that he has passed away) was pitifully out- 
witted and vanquished. All he could do was 
to reiterate, we have seen, his literalistic 


[ 41 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


interpretation of the Biblical text, gaining 
not a point in the cross-examination. Nor 
did his defence, published after his death, at 
all mitigate his defeat. Yet, apparently 
sterile as it appeared, the picture afforded a 
salutary lesson: It illustrated the vulner- 
ability of the whole religious edifice—a vul- 
nerability which cannot but have greatly 
weakened the faith of many believers even 
though some had been religious virtually 
from the cradle, while turning aside multi- 
tudes of men and women, as well as many 
youthful readers who otherwise might have 
welcomed sound teachings. 

The destructive influence of the prevailing 
interpretation of the Biblical text—of Gene- 
sis in particular—may probably be best ex- 
emplified by the contradictions it imposes 
where, as in University circles, sound estab- 
lished data are, where possible, the accepted 
guides. The attendance at universities and 
colleges has become phenomenal. Within 
the walls of the great number of such in- 
stitutions, large and small, the bulk of the 
future intellectuality of the land is being 
moulded. Their students are taught to 
reason out all questions on the basis of truth, 


[ 42 ] 


MISINTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLICAL TEXT. 
while, if their powers of intuition are brought 
to bear, they are urged to poise them always 
on solid facts in order to avoid vagaries or 
misconceptions. 

Outside the university precincts the same 
students hear or read such statements as the 
following: Man was created in one day; God 
blew the breath of life into his nostrils; 
woman was made from Adam’s rib; man fell 
because Eve, tempted by a serpent, ate a 
forbidden fruit; Cain, even though there 
could have been only Adam and Eve left 
after he had killed Abel, took unto himself 
a wife and fled as a fugitive on earth, stat- 
ing that any one who would find him would 
slay him! 

Trained in deductive reasoning at their 
university or college, they learn outside also 
that Adam, the image of God, physical and 
spiritual, suddenly becomes such a scape- 
grace in Eden that he has to be thrown out 
and an angel placed at the door to keep him 
out; Eve, though built of Adam’s flesh and 
therefore ““Divine,” is still worse than Adam 
since she was his temptress, and is also ex- 
pelled. Cain, the eldest son of the “Divine” 
pair, not only becomes a murderer but a 


[ 43 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


fratricide! Are such teachings not calculated 
to inspire disrespect for the Bible to the 
point of sacrilege? 

In all fairness, one cannot but admit that 
in order to avoid becoming an atheist with 
such teachings as mental food, one must curb 
one’s mind to the acceptance as true of many 
statements which, in the light of all experi- 
ence, are obviously false. Inability to per- 
form such accommodating mental gymnastics 
accounts for the many avowed atheists and 
for the multitude of near atheists, men and 
women, who are practically indifferent to 
religious thought, and who are increasingly 
outnumbering the faithful. 

The results were well illustrated by Prof. 
J. A. Leuba,! of Bryn Mawr College, after 
he had questioned the students of nine prom- 
inent colleges. Out of one thousand answers 
received, ninety-seven per cent. of students 
between eighteen and twenty years gave the 
following religious status: Unbelief increased 
from fifteen per cent. in the first year stu- 
dents to forty or forty-five per cent. among 
the graduates. In his own words: “The 


1J. A. Leuba: “Belief in God and Immortality,” 1922, 
p. 280. 


[ 44 ] 


MISINTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLICAL TEXT. 


students’ statistics show that young people 
enter ‘college possessed of the beliefs still 
accepted, more or less perfunctorily, in the 
average home of the land, and gradually 
abandon the cardinal Christian beliefs.” In 
truth, it is only a wonder that our students— 
the hundreds of thousands of men and women 
who will constitute the intellectual life of 
the near future—are not all atheists. 

Why not rid the Bible, as far as present 
knowledge will permit, of modes of interpre- 
tation justly calculated to fit the relatively 
childish and illiterate minds of primitive 
times, but which today only serve to obscure 
the true sense of the text and conceal its 
spiritual origin? Once rid of these repellant 
versions, the Biblical text will glow as a great 
white light and irresistibly draw to it not 
only previously professed atheists, but also 
the millions of individuals of both sexes and 
of all classes who today are quite indifferent 
to religious teachings. 

Worse than literal interpretations of the 
defective text is the prevailing tendency to 
consider Genesis, particularly its first few 
chapters, as consisting of myths or primi- 
tive folklore borrowed from Egyptian and 


[ 45 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


Babylonian crude and often apparently infan- 
tile conceptions. Such short-cut solutions are 
mere makeshifts which, in the light of pres- 
ent day knowledge and the miserable show- 
ing that all such derogatory negations have 
made in the past, particularly when great 
strides have been recorded in astronomy, 
electricity, radiology, bacteriology, steam and 
aerial navigation, etc., only serve to foster 
disbelief. The Assyrian, Chaldean, and other 
versions of creation have contributed the 
bulk of the Mosaic account of creation, but 
why regard them as mythical? 

When the evolutional psychology of the 
subject as a whole will have been fathomed 
to its depths, it may be found that ancient 
philosophers were wiser than ourselves, be- 
cause they, more than we, depended upon the 
inspiration of their spiritual soul—the one 
close link, as we shall see, between man and 
his Creator—for truths which today are as- 
serting themselves as such through another 
form of Divine inspiration and truth: science. 

As Schuré! said, referring to truth as the 
religious philosophers of the East and 
Greece, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Moses, 


1 Schuré: “Les Grands Initiés,” Paris, 1924, p. 11. 
[ 46 ] 


ERRONEOUS TRANSLATION OF HEBREW TEXT. 


Pythagoras and other great stars of the past, 
saw it: “For them the soul was the only 
divine reality and the key to the universe. 
By focussing the will and developing its 
latent powers, they reached the flowing 
Light which they named God.” 


ERRORS OF TRANSLATION FROM THE HEBREW 
TEXT WHICH PERVERT THE MEANING 
OF GENESIS. 

In the present connection, the foundation 
so to say of the whole religious structure, 
the creation of man, will alone be considered. 
Not only are the errors submitted such as 
to modify our interpretation of the part of 
Genesis in which this particular subject 
occurs, but also many teachings in other 
parts of the Bible. These will eventually 
be introduced as needed, as they are very 
numerous. 

The importance of these errors cannot be 
overestimated, for when they will be elimin- 
ated, no obstacle will remain to perpetuate the 
prevailing’ dissensions among the protestant 
Christians. When this will have been ac- 
complished by the labors of many (for my 
own aim is only to blaze a trail, in the hope 


[ 47 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


that others more competent may take up 
the work) misleading and disruptive conclu- 
sions which distort the Divine intent, will 
cease to be the foundation of any one’s faith, 
and be replaced by teachings which, judg- 
ing from their nobler attributes and aims, 
are at least more worthy of a Divine source. 
Particularly must the newer interpretations 
submitted be sound, for they harmonize auto- 
matically with the teachings of modern 
science in directions which otherwise, with 
the current interpretations of some of the 
text as basis, would be impossible. 

The need of science to elucidate the mean- 
ing of the original text explains the in- 
ability of the many able Hebrew scholars 
who have published the various translations 
to grasp the true sense of the original text. 
The difficulties of their work were further 
increased by the fact that ancient Hebrew, 
in which the text was written, had a very 
limited vocabulary, one word serving to ex- 
press many meanings. An additional source 
of confusion was that, instead of being sep- 
arated, the words were run together in more 
or less extensive groups, as we shall see 
presently. 


[ 48 ] 


ERRONEOUS TRANSLATION OF HEBREW TEXT. 


Especially misleading was the symbolic, 
figurative, or metaphorical nature of the 
language used to convey the original inter- 
pretation of the text to the primitive people 
for whom it was intended. The ancient 
Hebrews, following Egyptian customs, em- 
ployed three graded forms of speech: 1, the 
esoteric or sacerdotal, used mainly by priests 
and scholars in the temples, in which ques- 
tions of all sorts involving abstract reason- 
ing and philosophy were treated; 2, the col- 
loquial, employed by educated people, a very 
small proportion of the total population; 
and 38, the symbolic or metaphorical, pre- 
viously mentioned, calculated for the masses 
and illiterate, in which the resources now 
employed to make children understand, vz., 
simple examples based on daily experience, 
very commonplace and even puerile language, 
ete., were used. In the Garden of Eden, for 
instance, the trees, the serpent, the fruit, the 
angels with their flaming swords to guard 
the way to the tree of life, and other details 
are purely symbolic, in order to convey, not 
the creation of man and woman, as it has been 
taken to mean, but, as we shall see in the 
sixth chapter, the grave consequences of sin. 


e [ 49 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


It is this symbolic language which mis- 
leads the many who today accept the Biblical 
statements literally simply because they are 
believed to be ““God’s own words.” But they 
are not, as will now be shown by a few ex- 
amples in which the current English text 
will be compared with the translated He- 
brew text, leaving out signs for which there 
is no English equivalent and also duplica- 
tions. ‘The errors of translation will then 
also become evident. 

We will take as example first the all- 
important verse 2:7 in Genesis: 

‘‘And the Lord God formed man of the 
dust of the ground and breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life; and man be- 
came a living soul.” 

Translated from the Hebrew textually it 
reads: 


“Andformed God theman dust fromthe- 
ground andbreathed innostrilshis breath- 
spirit andbecame theman a soulspirit.” 


Why should the word “life” appear in our 
Bibles when it does not occur in the Hebrew 
text? In truth, pending more details, the 
Hebrew word rouwach, translated into the 
word “life” as we apply it to any living 


[ 50 ] 


ERRONEOUS TRANSLATION OF HEBREW TEXT, 


thing, does not have this meaning at all. It 
means “spirit” or “wind,” or better, the 
Hebrew soulspirit. 
Again, the first time that the name “Adam” 
appears in the Bible is in Genesis 2:19: 
“And out of the ground the Lord God 
formed every beast of the field and every 
fowl of the air and brought them unto 
Adam to see what he would call them and 
whatsoever Adam called every living crea- 
ture that was the name thereof.” 
The Hebrew text, omitting as before all 
signs, 1s as follows: 
Andformed God from theground every 
beastofthefield andevery fowloftheheavens, 
and causedtocome unto theman what he- 


willeall tohim andall which willcall tohim 
theman souloflife, he namehim. 


Here again there is some error, for where 
is “Adam” in the Hebrew text? As the 
French express it, “he shines by his absence.” 
Now Adam does not mean a special individ- 
ual at all; in Hebrew adam means a man or 
human being. Why such perversions of the 
original text in the millions of Bibles extant? 
Conversely, if the original meaning in the 
whole process of analysis concerning the so- 
called ‘‘Fall,” is used, it will be found to 


[ 51 | 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


transform completely its prevailing inter- 
pretation and to eliminate all the vulgarity 
it is thought to imply. 

“Adam” as a man being eliminated, the 
identity of Eve becomes a quandary. That 
the rib creation of Adam’s supposed wife 
is likewise symbolic will be shown in a 
special chapter. ‘The verse which first con- 
tains the name “Eve” (Genesis 3: 20) states: 


**And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, 
because she was the mother of all living.” 


The Hebrew text says, however: 


“Andcalled theman nameof hiswife life- 
giving for she was motherof allliving.” 

Once more is a common noun transformed 
into a single individual, ‘Eve,’ to create, 
with the fictitious individual “Adam,” a first 
human pair. But such a pair never existed, 
and the degrading role of “temptress” which 
the so-called “Eve” is made to play, does not 
in the least portray our “first mother.” The 
word eva or iévé or havva which means “life” 
in Hebrew, or “life-giving” in the spiritual 
sense, is the same “soulspirit” or “breath” 
with which, as we shall see, God endows man- 
kind as a whole, through the “mother,” the 


[ 52 ] 


ERRONEOUS TRANSLATION OF HEBREW TEXT. 


link, as will be shown later, between God and 
humanity, through her offspring. 

Cain and Abel, the supposed sons of 
“Adam” and “Eve,” form part of a story 
intended to illustrate figuratively the in- 
flexible severity of the punishment which 
awaits those who, under any circumstance 
other than self defence—jealousy being the 
cause of Cain’s fratricide—commit murder. 

That the so-called “Fall” itself was not in- 
tended to mean the normal relations of man 
and wife in the production of offspring is 
further demonstrated by the fact that be- 
fore the so-called “Fall” is related (Genesis 
2:28), God blessed man and woman and bid 
them to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the 
earth and subdue it.” 

These few salient examples, pending many 
others in succeeding chapters, will suffice to 
illustrate the erroneous character of the 
fundamental teachings of Genesis, as in- 
terpreted in the translations of the Bible at 
our disposal today. 

That these and other corrections I will 
submit, though dating back many years, were 
justified, was well shown by a very timely 
work which appeared recently by the Rev. 


[ 53 | 





MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 





Dr. C. P. Fagnani,! Professor of Hebrew in 
the Union Theological Seminary of New 
York, who enumerates the large number of 
translational discrepancies and the incredible 
teachings to which they give rise. It con- 
firms the meaning of the Hebrew words I 
had deemed applicable in the illustrations 
submitted. 

The manner in which science sustains the 
newer interpretations of various parts of 
Genesis and explains them will be shown, and 
additional data submitted, in succeeding 
chapters. 


THE “MONKEY THEORY A MYTH, BUT 
EVOLUTION SOUND AND TAUGHT IN 
| THE BIBLE. 

To endow Biblical teachings with their 
legitimate value, knowledge of the modern 
trend of evolution is necessary. In truth, as 
stated by Professor M. N. Metcalf, of Ober- 
lin University, “there is no conflict, no least 
degree of conflict, between the Bible and the 
fact of evolution,” but the literalist, although 
he does not realize it, “is trying to shut 


1¢C, P. Fagnani: “The Beginnings of History According to 
the Jews,” Published by A. and C. Boni, New York, 1925. 


[ 54 ] 





THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. 





men’s minds to God’s ever growing revela- 
tion of Himself to the human soul.” 

Evolution (from the Latin evolvere, to 
evolve or unroll), reduced to its simplest ex- 
pression, means but a process of development 
or unfolding. In plants and animals, it 
starts, beginning in the seed, grain, spore, 
cell, etc., progressive modifications of all 
parts of the developing organism, until the 
adult state is attained. A man who denies 
evolution, if consistent, should refuse to be- 
lieve that he has himself evolved from a 
fertilized ovum and developed from infancy 
to manhood, that an acorn can develop into 
an oak, that an apple seed, when planted, 
will cause the growth of an apple tree, etc. 
The progressive transformations of a cater- 
pillar into a chrysalis which in time becomes 
a butterfly, and also the familiar conversion 
of a tadpole into a frog, likewise illustrate 
what evolution means. Millions of other 
facts demonstrate that it is a commonplace 
function which manifests itself in every de- 
partment of nature. 

Everything that grows and in doing so be- 
comes more complex in order to reach its 
final state of development, is undergoing evo- 


[ 55 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


lution. Our solar system is an evolutionary 
product of what, at first, appears as a mist 
in space, a nebula. Our earth, a part of this 
solar system, itself undergoes evolution until 
it has reached its ultimate object, the pro- 
duction of life with man as its crowning 
effort—man, who unlike any other living 
being in nature, is endowed with a brain cap- 
able of grasping the idea of a Divinity and 
of the Infinite. 

The manner in which evolution occurs, the 
resources through which nature insures and 
perpetuates the process, constitute a special 
problem, and it is in this specific connection 
that various “theories” of evolution have been 
propounded. 

These theories did not begin with Darwin. 
Centuries before the Christian era, EKmped- 
ocles (about 450 B.c.), a Sicilian physician 
and physicist, taught what, in some particu- 
lars, science has since shown to be true, as 
we shall see in the fourth and fifth chapters, 
v1z., that a single element pervades all nature, 
the plants and animals, including man, rep- 
resenting but links in a continuous chain. 
No clearer explanation of the fundamental 
principle of evolution has been published 


[ 56 ] 


THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. 


since and the title of “father of the evolu- 
tion idea” bestowed upon Empedocles by 
some modern scientists is justified. 

Nor is the idea that man belongs to the 
animal kingdom modern, for this relation- 
ship dominated Egyptian lore long before 
the fourth Egyptian dynasty, which dates 
back to 4000 B.c. Even this is a relatively 
recent period, for it was during this dynasty 
that the typical Sphinx with its human head, 
its bull torso, its lion claws, and its folded 
eagle wings, typifying the animal nature of 
man, was dug out of the Egyptian sands, 
according to Schuré.t Darwin’s labors have 
sustained this solidarity or oneness of man 
with all other animals, already visualized, 
we have seen, by Empedocles. 

The first great modern evolutionist was 
the French naturalist de Lamarck (1744- 
1829) whose views, as we shall see later, are 
more compatible with those of our day than 
were Darwin’s. He was a firm believer in 
the principle of use and disuse as a factor of 
development, and in the principle of Divine 
creation of primordial forms, though as a 
starting factor only, the forces of nature sup- 


1 Schuré: “Les Grands Initiés,” Paris, 1924, p. 117. 


[ 57 | 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


plemented by the developmental influence of 
use doing the rest. 

Of the theories of the great naturalist 
Charles Darwin (1809-1882), the dominant 
one was that of natural selection. ‘This was 
based on his belief that variations or changes 
were gradually developed in living things, 
plants and animals, during the millions of 
years required for the evolutional process, 
and that through these variations, plants or 
animals could eventually become transformed 
into new species. As is well known, new 
varieties of flowers, fruit, etc., can be created 
artificially, that is to say by “artificial selec- 
tion.” Darwin concluded that this could 
also occur normally, e.g., automatically, in 
nature as a source of improvement. Hence 
the name “natural selection” he gave this 
theory. : 

The method adopted by nature to carry on 
this process, according to Darwin, was to 
create a large surplus of plants and animals 
and thus to provoke strife between them, 
for subsistence. ‘This suggested his struggle 
for existence theory, the purpose of which, 
as expressed by Herbert Spencer, was to in- 
sure the survival of the fittest. Under these 


[ 58 ] 


THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. 


conditions, whether due to greater physical 
strength, superior intelligence or other re- 
sources, the best or the fittest would alone 
survive. 

Time, however, has not sustained these 
interlocked theories. To understand the 
reasons for this fact, however, some idea of 
the meaning of the word “species” in the 
zoological sense is necessary. Darwin! him- 
self wrote in this connection that, “no defini- 
tion has satisfied naturalists; yet every natur- 
alist knows vaguely what he means when 
he speaks of a species. Generally the term 
includes the unknown element of a distinct 
act of creation.” ‘The term is, however, often 
confused with that of ‘“‘varieties’” for, as 
Darwin? states, “few well marked and well 
known varieties can be named which have 
not been ranked as species by at least some 
competent judges.” 

A few examples of the meaning of “species”’ 
will serve to illustrate its application. The 
house cat constitutes a species, the Felis 
domestica; the lion, however, is also a cat, 
but of another species, Felis leo; the tiger, 


1Darwin: “Origin of Species,” 6th Ed., p. 39. 
“Darwin: Loc. cit., p. 43. 


[ 59 | 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


still another cat, belongs to a third species, 
Felis tigris, etc. The term “Felis” in all, 
however, indicates that they collectively be- 
long to the genus Felis, forming a family, 
the Felide, composed of meat eaters, the 
Carnivora, etc. The family dog is the Canis 
familiaris as to species, but another kind of 
dog, the wolf, belongs to the Canis lupus 
species, although both belong to one family, 
the Canide. The apes also constitute a 
family, the Simiide, which include several 
species, the orang-outang (Simia Satyrus), 
the gorilla (Simia gorilla), the chimpanzee 
(Simia anthropopithecus), etc. Man, how- 
ever, does not belong to that family; his own 
family, the Hominide, includes but a single 
species (Homo sapiens) which includes all 
humanity, all races of man. 

Two important facts suggest themselves 
in this connection. One is that the species 
is always the last of the subdivisions; the 
other is that despite this fact, each species 
is specific as far as reproduction of its kind 
is concerned. ‘Thus, although the tiger and 
the lion belong to the same family, the 
Felide, a tiger will never beget a lion or 
vice versa. 


[ 60 ] 





THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. 


While there is no doubt that, as we shall 
see, present day animals, including man, are 
evolutional and improved products of primi- 
tive animals of the same species, this know]l- 
edge is not due to Darwin’s theories; it has 
been worked out by other scientists, the 
geologists, paleontologists and embryologists 
mainly, as we shall see. Darwin’s own 
doctrine of descent, e.g., that new and dif- 
ferent species could be evolved from other 
species, has steadily lost ground. Darwin! 
himself, four years after the publication of 
his “Origin of Species,’ wrote to Bentham: 
“When we descend to details we can prove 
that no one species has changed . if 
“Nor can we prove that the supposed changes 
are beneficial, which is the groundwork of 
the theory.” This honest and praiseworthy 
admission has not been contradicted by pains- 
taking investigations in all directions, and 
now, sixty-six years after Darwin’s “natural 
selection” theory was brought out, has been 
steadily losing ground as a fundamental 
doctrine. As a distinguished British scien- 
tist, Professor Bateson, said recently in an 


1 Darwin: cited by L. T. More: “The Dogma of Evolution,” 
Princeton, 1925, p. 195. 


[ 61 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


address in Canada: “Our doubts are not as 
to the reality or truth of evolution, but as 
to the origin of species.” 

Some of the objections to natural selection 
as an explanation of the origin of species 
were as follows, according to Professor J. 
M. Coulter,! of the University of Chicago: 
“It has been claimed that natural selection 
cannot bridge the gap between one species 
and another. It deals only with small varia- 
tions that fluctuate from generation to gen- 
eration. Although these may be increased 
in various directions by continuous selection, 
they have never been known to cross the 
boundary line of species.” 

Nor did the “fittest” forms alone survive, 
while many unfit forms did so. Yet, the 
“struggle for existence” shows itself in many 
directions, but it is not manifest in the direc- 
tion vouchsafed by Darwin, e.g., to improve 
the race or plant-life. Its purpose is to 
render the earth habitable, for it is evident 
that if some sort of mutual destruction, such 
as the consumption of plant-life by herbivor- 
ous animals and others and the destruction 


1J, M. Coulter: “Evolution, Heredity and Eugenics,” Bloom- 
ington, Ills., 1916, p. 47. 


[ 62 ] 


THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. 


of insects, rodents and smaller animals by 
larger ones both in the sea and on land did 
not occur, the countless numbers of plants 
and animals being constantly produced would 
soon overwhelm the whole earth. All this, 
however, was known long before the doctrine 
of the “survival of the fittest” was formu- 
lated. 

The prevailing teaching that “both man 
and the apes are descended from a common 
ancestor from which both lines have de- 
veloped” does not convey an_ established 
fact; it is purely inferential. Great similar- 
ity of structure, anatomical, physiological, 
pathological, etc., are inadequate to sustain 
even a kinship between the apes and man, 
since the great majority of the points of re- 
semblance can also be discerned in many 
other animals. 

As summarized by Professor J. Arthur 
Thomson: “The theory is that he [man] 
emerged probably as a mutation or saltatory 
variant from a stock common to the anthro- 
poid apes and to him.” A “theory” in the 
present connection does not warrant the 
“common stock” or “stem” assertion, partic- 
ularly in view of the fact that it has done 


[ 63 | 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


great harm in many directions where religion 
and morality were concerned. 

Especially should this be borne in mind in 
view of the statement of one of our leading 
comparative anatomists, Professor H. F. 
Osborn,! of Columbia University, that: “Be- 
tween the appearance of [Darwin’s] Origin 
of Species in 1859 and the present time, 
there have been great waves of faith in one 
explanation and then in another; each of 
these waves of confidence has ended in dis- 
appointment.” 

How does this affect the so-called “monkey 
theory of human descent’? 

It is obvious that if the apes, chimpanzees, 
gorillas and other “monkeys” belong to one 
family, the Simiudae, while man belongs to 
another family, the Hominide with but one 
species, its own, that Darwin’s theory having 
failed to bridge the gap between any two 
different species, there can be no ancestral 
connection, primordial or evolutional between 
“monkey” and man. 

The present situation of the question is 
graphically described by Professor J. Arthur 


1H. F. Osborn: “The Origin and Evolution of Life,” Lon- 
don, 1918, p. 9. 


[ 64 | 


THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. 


Thomson,! of the University of Aberdeen. 
While man, according to this naturalist, “‘is 
zoologically affiliated with the highest order 
of mammals to which apes and monkeys be- 
Iga Loe apeavoyare has been in 
one direction, man’s in another, but the ves- 
sels sailed from the same port; their keels 
were laid down in the same shipbuilding 
yard.” Evidently, then, different keels meant 
different vessels and no one vessel could be a 
product of any other. ‘This means that sev- 
eral vessels named respectively, gibbon, chim- 
panzee, orang, gorilla and man were built 
in the same yard as separate vessels. 'They 
all left port to reach a goal which but one 
of them reached: man—though after under- 
going slight variations or physical changes 
each succeeding generation. 

Briefly, man, in the light of modern sci- 
ence, is the product of a sifting out process 
in which monkeys, small and large, failed to 
make good, while man, once animal-like, a 
“humanoid,” gradually evolved into the pres- 
ent-day human being. He stands alone as 
such, absolutely distinct from the “monkey.” 


1J, Arthur Thomson: “Concerning Evolution,” New Haven, 
Conn., 1925, p. 196. 


z [ 65 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


“Entirely apart from the hwman family,’ 
wrote recently Professor Osborn,! “is the 
Simude (Latin, simia, ape), including the 
living and extinct anthropoid apes, the gor- 
illa, the chimpanzee, the orang and the gib- 


bon eDnesesanimals a). a). sadremiataiy 
different from the hwman family from its 
COTUCSL@IUSLOTY mau ee DUS eC ome 


Osborn, “the entire monkey-ape theory of 
human descent.) 2). 18 «a pureajicion 
which has been entirely set aside by modern 
anatomical research. All these animals ape 
or imitate man,” but “none of them is any- 
where near the true line of hwman ascent.” 
As Sir Arthur Keith,* another leading 
authority, also states: “All who have made 
a study of the human body are agreed that 
we must seek for man’s origin in an ape-like 
ancestor.” This means resemblance only, a 
parental connection having never been dem- 
onstrated. [All the italics are my own. ] 
Even the word “affiliated” in no way indi- 
cates a connection with any lower order of 
animal. It simply means that the anatomi- 
cal construction of the body of man resembles 


1 Qsborn: Original article in the New York Times, July 
12, 1925. 
2 Sir Arthur Keith: “Antiquity of Man,” 1925, vol. ii, p. 730. 


[ 66 | 





THE MONKEY THEORY A MYTH. 


greatly that of the higher apes. This, how- 
ever, 1S but a commonplace resource of 
nature, e.g., that of using throughout the 
entire animal scale whatever mechanism will, 
in any animal, have been found to best fill 
the needs of a given function. ‘The word 
“affiliated,” therefore, means only a conveni- 
ent expression for scientists, extremely use- 
ful for purposes of study, but in no way in- 
dicating a parental connection, near or re- 
mote, with the apes. This is further em- 
phasized by the many anatomical differences 
between them illustrated under the next 
heading. 

A clear recognition of the independence of 
man from the ape family will prevent in the 
future, it is earnestly hoped, the deplorable 
mistakes, so hurtful to the cause of religion, 
which Mr. Bryan and his followers, including 
the States which have passed anti-evolution 
laws, have made concerning the whole ques- 
tion. ‘They have attacked the shadow of an 
undemonstrable theory of evolution; they 
have advertised the “monkey descent theory”’ 
which most scientists had already cast aside; 
they have assailed the scientists themselves, 
not realizing that they were injuring and 


[ 67 | 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


counteracting the influence of friends who, 
by seeking the truth, were devoting their 
life’s work, as Professor Metcalf so well said, 
“to God’s evergrowing revelation of Him- 
self to the human soul.” 

Great injustice is also being done to Mr. 
Darwin in the “anti-evolution” campaign, so 
ill advised in all its aspects. Indeed, atheism 
was certainly not an attribute of the moral 
structure of a man who could write as Dar- 
win! did in 1859, referring to the main pur- 
pose or aims of his labors, the production 
of higher types of animals, including man: 
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with 
its several powers, having been originally 
breathed by the Creator into a few forms or 
into one; and that, while this planet has gone 
circling on according to the fixed law of grav- 
ity, from so simple a beginning, endless 
forms most beautiful and most wonderful 
have been, and are being evolved.” 

Finally, it is not because the main con- 
ceptions of Darwin have not been sustained 
by science that his labors have not been im- 
mensely fruitful indirectly. Every scientific 
man looks upon him as one of the greatest 


1 Darwin: “Origin of Species,” 6th Ed., p. 505. 
[ 68 | 





OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. 





naturalists that ever lived. In succeeding 
chapters we shall see—though mainly as a 
result of the vast amount of investigation it 
has provoked—one of the results of his 
labors, viz., that of placing physical man 
where he truly belongs, thus making it pos- 
sible for us all to realize that there eaists 
something in mankind, far greater than the 
physical self. 


THE ANIMAL BODY OF MAN NOT THE 
IMAGE OF GOD. 


Referring to the million years taken up by 
the sifting out process which finally enabled 
man to reach his high station among animals, 
Professor J. Arthur Thomson! characterizes 
the statement that “man sprang from a 
monkey” as “‘an unutterable vulgarity.” He 
also says, however,? that “what Darwin 
proved as far as proof is possible, was man’s 
solidarity with the rest of creation.” In 
other words, man’s physical self is one 
with all other animals. ‘There can be no 
doubt on that score; and as we _ shall 


1 J, Arthur Thomson: Loc. cit., p. 211. 
2 Ibid: Loe. cit., p. 196. 


[ 69 | 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


see, this harmonizes perfectly with Biblical 
teachings. 

The identity of man as a chosen individual 
in nature from the very start, complies with 
the universal law that a given seed will pro- 
duce only the kind of living organism from 
which it was derived. A “monkey” origin 
would have broken this law. Again, a feat- 
ure too often overlooked is that man’s diver- 
gences from the ape are far greater than 
those met with in many plants in which, 
though they resemble greatly one another, 
this law is rigidly carried out. ‘Thus, as 
compared to any of the apes, man assumes 
perfectly the erect posture. He is dis- 
tinguished also by his greater spinal fiexi- 
bility, the perfect adaptability of his lower 
limbs to the support of his body, the freedom 
and full development of the thumb which 
renders him capable of doing most intricate 
work, mechanical and artistic; the relatively 
greater length of the lower limbs as com- 
pared to the upper, his small canine teeth, 
and, of cardinal importance, his high fore- 
head with reduced brow-ridges, with large 
cranial capacity for a relatively larger and 
richly convoluted brain and incomparably 


[70 ] 





CONTRAST BETWEEN THE SKELETONS OF 
MAN AND OF THE ORANG, ONE OF THE HIGHER 
APES. 


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OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. 
higher intellectual powers. The contrast is 
shown in the annexed illustration. 

This is usually accounted for by the state- 
ment that man assumes the erect posture 
after passing through the different ones 
peculiar to the various apes from the lemur 
or gibbon up. But this is again only an 
assumption calculated to fit in with Darwin’s 
theory. ‘The boundary line of species hav- 
ing never been crossed, there can be no 
skeletal scale of development from the ape 
to man, Homo sapiens possessing his own 
family tree. 

Comparing these departures between man 
and the ape with the uniformity which char- 
acterizes each of the multitude of plants, 
however low, as regards the specific repro- 
ductive property of its seed, it will become 
evident that in such highly developed animals 
as the apes and man, each should also have 
its own original and reproductive cell. Every 
single one of the many varieties of oak, for 
instance, has its own special acorn, and each 
of these will cause but one, its own specific 
kind of oak, to grow. ‘This applies also, to 
name but a few of all the trees and plants 
in which this principle prevails, to the cones 


[71 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


of the evergreens, the hemlock, fir, larch, 
spruce, etc., which differ only in that their 
leaves are somewhat dissimilar in shape; each 
cone will develop into its own special ever- 
green and none other. Inasmuch as there is 
no departure (unless artificial procedures, 
grafting, etc., are resorted to) from this law, 
it cannot but apply also to the highest and 
most complex living organisms, the mam- 
mals. In view of this fact and the collapse 
of the “monkey theory of human descent,” 
it seems clear that each of the apes develops 
from its own specific reproductive cell, and 
that this applies also to man. 

The “stem” idea, in virtue of which the 
genealogy of man and all apes is thought to 
be represented by a tree the stem of which 
contains the ancestral lines of all these an- 
thropoids, is also misleading, in the light 
of the foregoing conclusions. It is no more 
justified than would be the statement that 
all the varieties of oak, maple, locust, poplar, 
willow, ete., should arise from a common 
tree stem merely because they show many 
morphological features in common. It is 
the seed, the reproductive cell, from my 
viewpoint, which decides this question and 


[ 72 ] 


OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. 
each kind of living thing must be treated as 
a specific unit. 


This interpretation also confirms Biblical 
teachings. Thus, in Genesis 1:11, it is 
stated: 

“And God said: Let the earth bring 
forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and 
the fruit tree yielding fruit after his 


kind whose seed is m itself, upon the 
earth.” 


The same emphasis is laid upon the specific 
individuality of each animal in Genesis 1: 24, 
when God says: 


“Let the earth bring forth the living 
creature after his kind, cattle and creep- 


ing thing and beast of the earth after his 
kind.” 


The earth, in truth, is rather disorderly 
and promiscuous in bringing forth plant life 
“each after his own kind,” unless it be under 
cultivation. Climatic conditions being equal, 
the flora of a given country is better illus- 
trated by a field studded here and there with 
various and different flowers, among many 
kinds of grasses and several kinds of trees, 
than in a botanical text-book in which—for 


[73 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


very good reasons—the flora of the region 
is carefully classified. This applies also to 
animals, the fauna, of a country. ‘The line 
of demarcation between plants and animals, 
in fact, is hardly perceptible where they meet, 
the protozoa, the first cells formed “in the 
beginning” in water, being prototypes of 
many formed ever since. But as the process 
of development progresses, plants and ani- 
mals, including man, do not develop from 
groups of cells merged together, but each 
from its own original nest, as it were. ‘The 
boundary line of species having’ never been 
crossed man cannot be considered as the pro- 
duct of a compound cell capable also of pro- 
ducing apes, but of his own specific cell. In 
other words, while man is an animal, he 
stands alone in nature as the product of a 
hwman primordial cell. 

The process of evolution from this proto- 
zoan or simple cell is shown by the science 
of Kmbryology, which reveals the pedigree 
of an embryo, or fertilized germ (in man 
the product of conception up to the fourth 
month) by recapitulating the whole history 
of its ancestry. Hinted at by the great 
naturalist, Agassiz, this fact was clearly 


Brey 


OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. 


enunciated by Prof. F. Muller in 1863. This 
ancestral history consists of various stages, 
each representing one step nearer the finished 
form. In the mammals, to which man be- 
longs, each step illustrates the adoption of 
organs or mechanisms used previously in 
lower forms. 

Darwin tried to explain this by variations 
which, having first appeared in one parent, 
tended to reappear at the same age in his off- 
spring. But this view has not been sus- 
tained, and no final solution of the problem 
has yet been vouchsafed. 

From my viewpoint, however, it looks as 
if nature built up successively various func- 
tional mechanisms, and added one to the 
other successively, each aggregate of steps 
forming a new animal until the most efficient, 
man, had been built up. This may be ex- 
emplified by the evolution of two related 
functions, the circulation and_ respiration. 
Thus, in the human embryo, we can readily 
recognize the first great step which occurred 
after the original or primordial cell has be- 
gun to develop in the terrestrial seas. It be- 
comes a minute fish, as far as its breathing 
apparatus and circulation of its blood are 


[75 | 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


concerned. Now, man carries this earliest 
transformation all through life. But instead 
of living in sea water, he carries this water 
with its salt, diluted and chemically adjusted 
to his needs, as blood in his blood-vessels. In 
other words, man is a fish who earries his 
sea-water within him, a fact which applies to 
all other animals. 

But how did the transition from a water 
animal to a land animal occur? 

Every one is familiar with amphibious ani- 
mals. Some, the Mexican axolotl, for in- 
stance, are able to breathe in water through 
gills and on land through lungs, and when 
kept on land, were found to live on normally. 
Hence the fact that the human embryo, re- 
peating the process, develops lungs, after 
which the gills disappear. ‘This does not oc- 
cur invariably, however, for we sometimes 
meet in our patients “gill clefts” left over 
from the patient’s embryonic life, which had 
failed to disappear. 

Another adaptation to man’s use (as well 
as in all other higher animals), which is in- 
itiated in fishes, is that of pulmonary and tis- 
sue respiration. ‘Thus, many fishes possess 
in regions of the body which in high animals 


[ 76 ] 





OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. 


are occupied by the lungs, a structure known 
as the “air bladder” which is now regarded 
as an organ of flotation. As one of its 
names indicates, it is filled with air, which, 
as is well known, contains oxygen. 

A surprising feature of modern knowledge 
is that the chief fundamental function of the 
body, respiration, has never been explained 
except by a doctrine, that of “diffusion,” 
which is as erroneous as it is misleading. As 
an editorial writer (a physiologist) wrote a 
few years ago: “An answer to the question 
as to how the all-important oxidations in the 
body are brought about is almost as obscure 
today as it was a hundred years ago.” My 
own investigations, judging from the con- 
siderable supporting evidence published by 
other investigators, seem to me to have solved 
this problem. 

The walls of the elongated sac known as 
the air bladder in various fishes, are lined in- 
ternally, in some elevated areas of this struc- 
ture, with a membrane very similar, in vas- 
cularity, to that of the human pulmonary 
air cell. That of the air bladder is in reality 


1 Editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation, 1919, vol. Ixxii, p. 1697. 


[77 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


but a large air-cell itself, and not intended 
as an “organ of flotation,” but, in keeping 
with the views of some zoologists, as an 
emergency respiratory sac which enables cer- 
tain fishes to breathe in stagnant waters, or 
at great depths where the supply of free 
oxygen in the water has become insufficient 
for respiration through the gills. Like the 
lungs, it develops from the pharynx, and 
admits air from the latter through a small 
duct. In an asphyxiated fish, the oxygen in 
the air of the bladder which usually is about 
twenty-five per cent., entirely disappears and 
is replaced by carbonic acid and nitrogen. 
How could the oxygen in the air of the 
bladder be taken up by the blood, however? 
Personal labors have shown that the ab- 
sorption of oxygen from the air in this air 
bladder was due to an internal secretion sup- 
plied by organs which correspond to the 
“adrenals” (overlying the kidneys) in man. 
These organs secrete into the blood of the 
cardinal vein of fishes a substance which en- 
ables this blood to take up oxygen from the 
air and to carry it through the arteries to 
the animal’s tissues. In man, the only dif- 
ference is that while the gills have disap- 


[78 ] 


OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. 





peared, the oxygen-absorbing spaces of the 
air bladder have become divided into millions 
of minute air cells in the lungs, which like- 
wise receive the secretion of the adrenals 
through the inferior vena cava and the heart. 
The human respiratory system, therefore, is 
a development of that of fishes with the 
secretion of the adrenals as chemical respira- 
tory agent. 

This interpretation of respiration, formu- 
lated by myself in 1903, and since sustained 
by the labors of many other investigators, 
explains many heretofore obscure phenom- 
end. 

These various examples will suffice to 
show that man’s evolution from his original 
cell in primordial seas, includes the adoption 
of organs similar to those of various other 
animals. The ape, whose body resembles 
most closely that of man, does likewise in 
many intricate particulars. ‘This does not 
mean, however, that man descends or ascends 
eer ects who may be interested in the functions of the 
human adrenals in respiration will find the subject sum- 
marized in an article by myself published in the medical 
journal “Endocrinology,” November-December, 1925, or in 
either of the ten editions of my work (two volumes) on “The 


Internal Secretions and the Principles of Medicine,” pub- 
lished by the F. A. Davis Co., Philadelphia. 


[79 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


from the ape; it only means that nature used 
one general system to build up all higher 
animals and that man and the ape, being the 
highest animals, were products of the same 
process. The salient fact, however, is that 
man is, without doubt, himself developed as 
an animal. 

Coming now to additional evidence to this 
effect, much is afforded by geology and 
paleontology. 

After a very long line of generations 
(which includes the appearance of “human- 
oids” or “cave men,” not far above beasts), 
the attributes of the present day man began 
to appear. Prominent among these are 
skulls which are typically human, and im- 
plements which could only have been used by 
man, though found in layers of soil known 
to be from 45,000 to 500,000 years old. In 
the latter layers, for instance, corresponding 
with the Pliocene age, many tools, weapons, 
flints, ete., were found which no animal but 
man could have fashioned. Moreover, a 
workshop was discovered in which fire had 
been used. Not only did the shop con- 
clusively point to the presence of man, but 
the fire-building process that it indicated, 


[ 80 | 


OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. 
likewise. In cold regions, of Africa for in- 
stance, a fire left by hunters will be greatly 
enjoyed by apes, but never has one of these 
animals, the nearest to man, been known to 
prolong the fire by adding wood or brush to 
it, even when plenty is right at hand. 

The conformation of fossil human skulls 
was found gradually to change as the layers 
of soil approached the surface, in that the 
brow, chin, size of the skull, etc., resembled 
increasingly that of the average man of our 
day. A distinct process of development was 
obvious at every stage. The Piltdown man 
of 500,000 years ago, with his flat brow, ab- 
sent chin and limited brain cavity indicating 
a correspondingly limited brain power, was, 
for instance, a very different individual from 
the Cro-Magnon man of 25,000 years ago 
with his prominent chin, full brow and large 
brain. 

When we consider that, in the opinion of 
scientists, the age of the earth approximates 
a billion years and that life in its various 
forms began at least fifty million years ago, 
man in his organized state is relatively a new- 
comer, the earliest signs of his presence hav- 
ing been discovered in Foxhall, England, in 


: [ 81 | 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM. 


rocks over a million years old. Even these 
contained crude flint implements, which could 
only have been used by hands capable of 
clipping, a power which the highest apes do 
not possess, their thumbs being entirely too 
short, while the degree of intelligence re- 
quired to manufacture or use the implements 
was quite beyond that of any living or ex- 
tinct ape. While man appeared late, we 
must not lose sight of the fact that his pre- 
liminary development to that complex state 
also occupied a long period, so that the cell 
from which he obtained his start, just as an 
original acorn started the oak, must have 
taken several millions of years more. 

An important query in this connection is 
whether the earliest cells which evolved plants 
or animals began doing so only when the 
earth had been sufficiently evolved or de- 
veloped to sustain life? 

The answer to this question is too often 
overlooked. Dr. C. B. Davenport,! director 
of the department of genetics of the Carnegie 
Institute, of Washington, D. C.,—who, by 
the way, justly states that the biologist be- 
lieves “the word of God” to be “the testi- 


1¢C. B. Davenport: Scientific Monthly, August, 1925. 
[ 82 | 





OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. 





mony of nature,’—writes in this connection: 
“All kinds of organisms were not made at 
the beginning of the world. There are now 
thousands of forms of animals and plants 
that reproduce their kind which did not 
exist a century ago. Within the last ten 
years there have been produced scores of 
forms of the banana fly never before seen by 
the eye of man.” 

Again, those of us who have studied in- 
timately the processes of nature are familiar 
with the economy and precision with which 
apparently divergent functions are carried 
out. The process of digestion in all animals, 
including man, is performed, for instance, 
by means of enzymes as active agents. As 
personal labors have shown, this same diges- 
tive process serves in the blood and tissue 
cells to carry on the vital process and im- 
munity. Bacteria are digested anywhere in 
the body in the same way that food is digested 
in the alimentary tract. The same uniformity 
is evident in the anatomical structure of all 
animals. Muscles, nerves, bones, blood, ete., 
are practically similar in all of them, includ- 
ing man. When it comes to the anthropoid, 
or man-like apes, the resemblance in all these 


[ 83 ] 


MAIN CAUSES OF ATHEISM, 


particulars is striking, simply because struc- 
turally and chemically, they are the nearest 
to man. 

Professor W. W. Keen,! the Nestor of 
American Surgery, in his book further em- 
phasizes the remarkable physical resemblance 
between the higher animals and man, bring- 
ing in besides the similarities mentioned 
above many others such as the effects of 
operations on the brain, ancestral vestiges, 
identical diseases, embryonic deformities, 
heredity, the influence of emotions, sexuality, 
etc.—all proving conclusively that the human 
body is but an animal body, with all its 
vulnerabilities to defects, diseases, destruc- 
tion and decay. 

Does this tend to invalidate Biblical teach- 
ings? ‘The opposite is emphatically the case. 
It serves to demonstrate that science, far 
from antagonizing the Bible, fully sustains 
the great truths concerning the physical 
nature of man that it contains. Man attrib- 
utes to his animal body the supreme pre- 
rogative of being the “image of God,” but 
science proves definitely to him that this is 
a gross error, quite in accord with what the 


1W. W. Keen: “I Believe in God and Evolution,” 1922. 
[ 84 | 


OUR BODY NOT THE IMAGE OF GOD. 


apostle Paul (Romans 1:22 and 23) told 
the Romans, referring to their self-idolatry: 
“Professing themselves to be wise, they 
become fools” and ‘‘changed the glory of 
the uncorruptible God into an image 
made like to corruptible man.” 

Science, moreover, as we shall see pres- 
ently, fulfills another great mission when thus 
proving the physical nature of the human 
body. It brings out of the shadow into 
which worldly interests have practically rele- 
gated it, man’s distinguishing feature above 
all beasts, his spiritual body, for which the 
physical body serves as a temporary abode. 


[ 85 | 


CHAPTER III. 


EVOLUTION AS PROOF THAT MAN 
IS DIVINE. 


MAN, OF ALL ANIMALS, ALONE ENDOWED 
WITH A DIVINE SPIRIT. 

N the light of the data submitted in the 

foregoing chapter, the following remarks 
by Prof. J. IT. Scopes, of the Rhea County 
High School of Dayton, Tenn., at the time 
of his trial, were plainly justified: “As an 
engineer and chemist I can say that chem- 
istry, geology and biology are all pathways 
to God, and the only book that God Almighty 
ever wrote is read through the spectacles of 
geology and biology, and on every page of 
God’s only book is the story of evolution. 
I have never met a true student of science 
who was not a very religious man. 

“Bryan believes that to accept evolution 
and permit it to be taught in the schools will 
cause a moral collapse of the young people 
of the country. On the contrary, he would 
cause a moral collapse by not permitting the 
truth to be taught.” 


[ 86 | 


MANKIND ALONE HAS DIVINE SPIRIT. 


We have seen that all branches of biology 
sustain the evolution of man from a primary 
cell, which initiates the purely physical nature 
of his body. What evolution did, then, ir- 
respective of any Darwinian interpretation, 
is to prove that the body is a product of the 
soil—quite in keeping with Genesis 2:7, 
which says: 

“And the Lord God formed man of the 
dust of the ground.” 


in proving the correctness of Biblical 
teaching in this connection, however, the 
scientific study of evolution has done more: 
It has placed on an absolutely solid founda- 
tion the fact that we must not confuse the 
physical or clay-formed human body with 
the Divine self it contains—that which the 
apostle Paul, in answer to the question: 
“How are the dead raised and with what 
manner of body do they come?” said (I 

Corinthians 15: 44): 

“There is a natural body and there is 
a spiritual body.” 


By conclusively demonstrating the lowli- 
ness of our physical body, thus distinguish- 
ing it from the spiritual body, science also 


[ 87 | 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


confirms Paul’s teaching (I Corinthians 
15:36): 
“That which thou sowest is not quick- 
ened.” 

Both Paul and science thus affirm that the 
seed of man, his physical self, belongs to 
earth, and as a product of the clay is not it- 
self a spiritual entity. This is quite in keep- 
ing with EKhhu’s (Job 34:15) statement that 


“Man shall turn again into dust.” 


It might be objected, however, that all this 
is contradicted by the verse (Genesis 2:7): 


“And the Lord God formed man of 
the dust of the ground, and breathed into 
his nostrils the breath of life, and man 
became a living soul.” 
the word “life” here being taken in its literal 
sense, 2.€., that meant when we speak of the 
life of the body. But, as previously stated, 
the Hebrew word rowach does not mean 
“life,” but “spirit.” What the verse means, 
therefore, is that God made the body of man 
out of the soil, but endowed it with a breath 
of His Own Spirit or living soul. 
Science, by demonstrating that man, as a 
purely physical animal, can only serve as 


[ 88 ] 


MANKIND ALONE HAS DIVINE SPIRIT. 
an abode of the Divine Spirit in him, also 
sustains Paul’s statement in II Corinthians 
(6:16) that: 


“Ye are the temple of the living God.” 


Human vanity, we have seen, receives 
somewhat of a shock in this connection. Dr. 
Osborn, in an article previously quoted, re- 
calls the great French anatomist Testut’s 
comparison of the anatomy of man as re- 
gards its limitations, with the admonitions of 
a slave employed to remind each Roman 
Emperor that he was “but a man and not a 
god.” Similarly, science keeps on repeating: 
“You are only a man, your daily and hourly 
existence depends on nervous, muscular, 
glandular and skeletal systems which were 
designed not in a few hours but in many 
millions of years. Your own cellular struc- 
ture of development from germ and embryo 
to manhood is a syncopated epitome of your 
past history.” In other words, man should 
not apply to his physical body, built out of 
dust and which returns to dust, the verse 
(Genesis 1: 26): 


“And God said, let us make man in 
our image, after our likeness.” 


[ 89 | 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


A little reflection will suffice to suggest 
that its tendencies to depravity and crime 
and to a multitude of diseases, render the 
physical body anything but a divine organism 
such as those who speak of an “anthropo- 
morphic God” would have it. Indeed, as 
stated in Romans (1:22 and 23), we have 
seen, the Bible speaks very deprecatingly of 
those who “change the glory of the uncorrup- 
tible God into an image made like to corrup- 
tible man.” 


This, however, does not prevent man from 
being the “temple of the Living God,” or in 
other words, a terrestrial organism capable 
of housing a “spiritual body.” Indeed, it is 
in virtue of this special endowment that men 
in general, in keeping with the second part 
of the verse in Genesis (1:26): 

“Have dominion over the fish of the 
sea and over the fowl of the air and over 
the cattle and over all the earth, and 


over every creeping thing that creepeth 
upon the earth.” 


Proof of his superiority is self evident on 
all sides. It is because, even though de- 
veloped and built on lines similar to those 
of lower animals and corruptible like them, 


[ 90 | 


MANKIND ALONE HAS DIVINE SPIRIT. 





he embodies this spark of the Divine self 
that, unlike the lower animals, man is him- 
self a creator. Hence, the marvelous in- 
ventive powers, pure expressions of his 
spiritual genius and the special development 
of his brain, which he shows in all directions: 
science, art, literature, etc. It is when the 
mental powers of such men as Pasteur, 
Lister, Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Goethe, 
Schiller, Raphael, Michel Angelo, Lavoisier, 
Laplace, Newton, Emerson, Edison and 
many others are compared with the greatest 
achievements of any lower animal—even the 
highest, the ape, elephant, dog, etc.—that it 
is possible fully to realize what the only 
spiritualized animal, the highest of all, rep- 
resents on earth. 

The never-found “missing link” becomes 
an absurdity under these conditions. It will 
continue to be “missing’”’ now that the gap 
between man and monkey has been found 
unbridgeable. 

During the Scopes tnal, Judge J. T. 
Raulston had occasion, very appropriately, 
to propound a series of questions to the at- 
torneys of the defense, none of which could 
have been met with the Darwinian theory as 


[ 91 | 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


standard. ‘This theory once eliminated, and 
each species, including man, preserving its 
autonomy, all can be satisfactorily answered 
on the basis of perfect harmony between 
religion and sciences Both the questions and 
answers are submitted here in the hope that 
they will more clearly than by any other 
means define the newer relations between 
these two greatest human assets. In Judge 
Raulston’s words: 

“First. When you insist man descended 
from a lower order of animals, have you evi- 
dence to support this theory sufficiently defi- 
nite to justify the expectation that intelli- 
gent people will accept it and adopt this 
theory?” 

Man in the light of modern labors, does 
not descend from a lower order of animals; 
his biological genealogy is strictly human 
from the initial cell to his birth, even though 
functional resources utilized in his body are 
also used by Nature in other animals. Again 
evolution as herein presented clearly sus- 
tains Biblical teachings when the errors of 
translation in Genesis are corrected. 

“Second. Have you any evidence that 
this theory can in any aspect of life be bene- 


[ 92 | 


MANKIND ALONE HAS DIVINE SPIRIT. 


ficial to man? Is not the contrary true— 
that it tends to degrade man?” 

it is precisely because the pleadings of the 
Divine Spirit are cast aside increasingly that 
the moral decay summarized in the first 
chapter of this book can proceed increasingly 
each year in the United States. The inter- 
pretation of evolution submitted elevates man 
by giving his Divine Spirit a degree of 
prominence which he has too freely given 
to his body. It will be of great benefit to 
him to realize this fact, for he will be more 
vulnerable to the promptings of his con- 
science, the spiritual beacon of his soul, and 
to the teachings of his church whether 
Christian or Jewish, God being the Father 
of us all. 

“Third. Doesn’t the theory of evolution 
seek to destroy the doctrine of the inspira- 
tion of the Bible’? 

We have seen that precisely the opposite 
will be the case with the modern doctrine of 
evolution as standard. A greater recognition 
of the Divine Spirit in man will normally 
accentuate belief in the Divine inspiration for 
which the Bible is the intermediary and more 
clearly convey its lofty teachings. 


[ 93 | 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


“Fourth. Doesn’t it purpose to eliminate 
the divinity of Christ’’? 

Eiven the Darwinian theory did not, as 
framed by its author, tend to eliminate the 
divinity of Christ.. The newer conception 
of evolution, however, by restricting to man 
alone the possession of a Divine Spirit, by 
confirming the origin of his body from 
the dust, indirectly sustains the divinity of 
Christ. 

“Fifth. Doesn’t it deny the resurrection?” 

Hvolution, bearing as it does only on the 
physical side of the body, cannot deny resur- 
rection, but the concordance of the newer in- 
terpretation of evolution summarized in the 
foregoing pages with Biblical teachings would 
tend to suggest concordance as regards resur- 
rection rather than denial. 

“Siath. If the theory of evolution de- 
stroys man’s faith in the integrity of the 
Bible, in the divinity of Christ and the resur- 
rection, doesn’t it thereby undermine the 
Christian religion?” 

The perfect concordance of the newer in- 
terpretation submitted with Biblical teachings 
will only serve to increase faith in the Bible. 
We have just seen that this can only re- 


[ 94 ] 


MANKIND ALONE HAS DIVINE SPIRIT. 





flect favorably on the Christian doctrine. 
Instead of undermining the Christian re- 
ligion, it will tend to fortify its foundation. 

“Seventh. Can civilization survive the de- 
struction of the Christian religion?” 

This country at the present time is giving 
an example of what the destruction of 
Christianity would mean. It leads all other 
civilized nations in crime, the main cause be- 
ing loss of influence of religion, partly owing 
to internal quarrels in various churches. 
Other major reasons have been reviewed in 
the second chapter. Disbelief has also been 
fostered by the Darwinian doctrine of evolu- 
tion, though only because its tenets have been 
perpetuated by laymen who failed to realize 
that scientists no longer supported it. ‘The 
trend of the prevailing interpretation of evo- 
lution outlined herein, far from tending to- 
wards destroying Christianity is strongly to 
sustain its teachings by, as will be further 
demonstrated in succeeding chapters, foster- 
ing belief in God, the Father of Christ. 


[95 ] 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


MAN'S DIVINE SPIRIT AS THE SOURCE OF 
HIS SUPERIOR INTELLECT AND OF 
NOBLER INSTINCTS. 


The general heading of the present chapter 
consists of the phrase: “Evolution as Proof 
that Man is Divine.” ‘The word “proof” is 
seldom used in science, so numerous are the 
possibilities of change on the morrow. Yet, 
in the present connection, proof is available 
in the impossibility to bridge another gap, 
that between the highest of animals next to 
man and man himself as regards intelli- 
gence. Books galore have been written 
having in view another link between the 
lower animals and man, or indeed an un- 
broken chain of evolutional intelligence, from 
the lowest unicellar or primary living animal 
to man. 


This, however, is but another obscuring 
residue of the Darwin theory. Precisely, as 
the boundary line of species has never been 
crossed, so has the enormous gulf between 
the highest possibilities of the most intelli- 
gent of the lower animals known and the 
highest intellectual possibilities of man never 
been bridged. They are far beyond any de- 


[ 96 | 


MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. 





gree of comparison, as already stated in the 
preceding section. 

Darwin, himself, was unable to tell us 
why the apes should have stopped short a 
million of years or so ago as regards the de- 
velopment of the mind, while man forged 
ahead, in this particular until he reached his 
present lofty intellectual status. Darwin 
wrote in this connection: “If it be asked why 
apes have not had their intellects developed 
to the same degree as that of man, general 
causes only can be assigned, in answer, and 
it is unreasonable to expect anything more 
definite considering our ignorance with re- 
spect to the successive stages of development 
through which each creature has passed.” 

As to present knowledge on the subject, 
Professor G. H. Parker of Yale,! stated, 
(1923), in reference to the relation of our 
mental life to our body “we are still not far 
from the position described by Vesalius in 
1543, when he wrote “How the brain per- 
forms its functions in imagination, in reason- 
ing, in thinking and in memory, I can form 
no opinion whatever.’”’ Such being the case 
how may we expect to bridge the gap be- 


1G, H. Parker: “The Evolution of Man,” 1923, p. 102. 
; [97 | 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


tween the most intelligent animal mind, 
which President J. R. Angell! compares to 
that of a young baby or low grade moron, 
and man’s stupendous mental powers? ‘This 
question has never been answered. 

It is in this connection, from my view- 
point, that evolution has afforded proof that 
man is divine. His intellectual possibilities 
are so great when they are compared to those 
of any other so-called intelligent animal, that 
they betoken the presence in him of some 
influence, some power which no other animal 
possesses. In other words, man’s special in- 
tellect is due to his Divine spirit. 

“Nothing is more striking throughout the 
animal and vegetable kingdoms,” writes Pro- 
fessor Agassiz,* “than the unity of plan in 
the structure of the most diversified types. 
From pole to pole, in every longitude, mam- 
malia, birds, reptiles and fishes exhibit one 
and the same plan of structure, involving 
abstract conceptions of the highest order” 

. “If there is anything which places 
man above all other beings in Nature, it is 
precisely the circumstance that he possesses 

1J. R. Angell: Ibid., p. 121. 

2 Agassiz: “Essays on Classification.” 


[ 98 ] 


MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. 


those noble attributes without which, in their 
most exalted excellence and perfection, not 
one of these general traits of relationship so 
characteristic of the great types of the ani- 
mal and vegetable kingdoms can be under- 
stood or even perceived.” 


All these ‘abstract conceptions of the 
highest order” are attributed by the great 
Swiss naturalist to the Supreme Mind. Man 
is identified by him as the only being capable 
of witnessing this splendor, of estimating its 
worth, of grasping its immensity and, what 
is more, of conceiving their Divine source. 
Indeed, as stated in the Hebrew version by 
Job 32:8: 

“God inspires a man; it is the Almighty 
God who breathes knowledge into him.” 


How significant is the restriction to that 
one being, among the multitudes of living 
creatures, notwithstanding the striking simi- 
larities in physical structure and their iden- 
tical method of physicochemical disintegra- 
tion after death! It fittingly brands man’s 
higher psychical self with attributes of the 
Divine kinship which Biblical teachings claim 
for him as “the temple of a living God.” 


[ 99 | 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


Anthropology indirectly sustains the posi- 
tion of other branches of science in this con- 
nection: It places man at the head of creation 
as endowed with mental powers which mark 
him off clearly from all other animals. 

It is not, as we have seen, by comparing 
the aptitudes of the highest animals in the 
scale of species, the ape, with those of the 
most degraded human beings that we can 
distinguish the immeasurable distance that 
separates the human from other species; but 
only by contrasting the highest mental powers 
of the ape with those of man. Any link here 
is unthinkable. 

Can we in the same breath speak of the 
creations of the most highly trained ape ever 
known with those of a man who is able to 
compose a tragedy, a symphony, to plan one 
of our magnificent cathedrals, to solve great 
astronomical problems, to discover the mani- 
festations of electricity, radioactivity and 
harness them to the uses of mankind; to 
work out the intricacies of creative chemis- 
try; nitrogen, soil foods, coal-tar colors, etc. ? 

Language, that is to say, articulate gram- 
matical speech, as is well known, is the ex- 
clusive property of the human race. As an 


[ 100 ] 


MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. 


anthropologist, Dr. E. B. Taylor, states: 
‘“Man’s power of using a word, or even a 
gesture, as a symbol of a thought, and the 
means of conversing about it, is one of the 
points where we see him parting company 
with all lower species, and starting on his 
own career of conquest through the higher 
intellectual regions.” 

The power to invent is as exclusively 
man’s own. “No instance can be cited,” 
writes the late Dr. D. G. Brinton, another 
distinguished anthropologist, “where even the 
most advanced of the inferior animals fash- 
ioned a single tool. When it is remembered 
that even the very lowest tribes of men make 
tools of remarkable ingenuity, and that in the 
most remote geologic age in which we find 
the slightest traces of man he both knew the 
use of fire and manufactured weapons, these 
distinctions mark him off broadly from all 
other living creatures.” 

The very word “create” (bara in Hebrew) 
which means to cut, carve, hew, shape or give 
existence to something new, affords the 
earliest clew sought by geologists and anthro- 
pologists to identify the presence of man in 
the deeper strata through cutting and hew- 


[ 101 ] 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 





ing tools and weapons. ‘These are some- 
times found, in fact, long before fragments 
of the fossil remains of their makers and 
users are uncovered. 'To create, thus typifies 
in scientific researches the dawn of the 
Creator’s presence in man. 

The Divine origin of the creative mind also 
suggests itself if an effort is made to ascer- 
tain the actual source of creative or inventive 
genius. It is then found that most inven- 
tions are but reproductions of processes 
which are commonplace in nature. Our own 
body—which but typifies similar functions in 
lower animals—affords many examples of 
this fact. The intricate water-supply systems 
of our cities are but enlarged replicas 
of our blood circulatory system, with its 
powerful central pump, the heart, and its 
conduits and pipes, the blood-vessels and 
their minute capillaries to our cells, repre- 
senting the small water-pipes which furnish 
our homes. A great electric power plant is 
also typified by our own brain, the spinal 
and general nervous systems. Even central 
dynamos are reproductions of many ganglia 
or “solar plexuses,” star-like masses widely 
distributed in our body which insure proper 


[ 102 ] 


MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. 


subdivision and distribution of electric energy 
to the blood-vessels of all organs and thus 
regulate their supply of blood and the nutri- 
tion and functional activity of our tissues. 

Electric light devices are common in deep- 
sea animals. Some actually have an in- 
candescent lamp hung ahead of them by a 
stem projecting from the head. They turn 
on the light when in motion and as needed. 
Some cuttlefish (Thanmalampas, for in- 
stance) have glowing lights at the tip and 
middle of their anterior “feelers” to enable 
them to detect, follow and illuminate their 
prey. Others remind one of Christmas trees 
with their different colored lights; others 
again carry a string of lamps along their 
body; some, indeed, may be actually studded 
with them as observed in specimens found 
during the Sargasso Sea explorations. 

Turning to other fields, the aéroplane is 
but an imperfect reproduction of a bird; even 
the radio sets, wireless telegraphy and other 
modern wonders could all be shown to be 
reproductions of what nature has been doing 
millions of years. 

Man thus utilizes creative powers which 
already exist in Nature and if creation itself 


[ 103 ] 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


is traceable to God, whence does man him- 
self receive his power to create? We have 
seen the answer in the quotation from the 
Hebrew version of Job 32:8, on page 99, 
i.€., God’s breath, the Divine Spirit, in him. 

In these conditions evolution has clearly 
afforded proof that man is divine, for by rel- 
egating his body to its lowly level, the clay, 
it has raised the spiritual soul of which he is 
the “temple” to the level which its identity 
as the “image” (“‘lkeness” in the Hebrew 
text) of God entitles it. 

Man’s nobler attributes, love of mankind 
and efforts to relieve its sufferings, also in- 
spired by his Divine soul, may be illustrated 
by the accomplishments of the various de- 
partments of Medicine in modern times. 

During the sixteenth century, Ambroise 
Paré, the leading military surgeon of his 
time, ordered his aids to “sweetly cut the 
throats” of all badly wounded soldiers, to end 
their sufferings. Professor W. W. Keen! 
states that his great master in surgery (also 
mine), Professor Samuel D. Gross, Sr., and 
other surgeons of his generation recalled “the 


1W. W. Keen: “Medical Research and Human Welfare,” 
1917, p. 1%. 


[ 104 J 


MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. 
way in which patients were bound hand and 
foot and held in the tight grip of four strong 
orderlies to secure partial quietude, and of 
the almost frantic involuntary struggles of 
patients and their screams of agony in the 
pre-anesthetic days.” In 1844 this torture 
of all unfortunates who had to undergo an 
operation ceased forever, for then began the 
anesthesia era with the successive discoveries 
of nitrous oxide (Horace Wells, Hartford, 
Conn.); ether (C. W. Long, Athens, Ga., 
1842); chloroform (Sir J. Y. Simpson of 
Edinburgh, 1847) and other general, local 
and spinal anesthetics as true godsends! 

The strides of surgery itself have been as 
phenomenal. The labors of Louis Pasteur 
(born 1822, died 1895), by introducing the 
science of bacteriology, prepared the way 
for benefits to suffering humanity which 
have no parallel in the history of the world. 
It was his great work in this direction which 
suggested to Lister the deadly role which 
bacteria played in surgery and brought about 
the marvelous operative results obtained ever 
since. 'To these discoveries we owe the fact 
that it was possible to save the lives of nearly: 
ninety-two per cent. of American soldiers 


[ 105 ] 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


wounded and injured during the World 
War. 

As stated in the report of the Surgeon- 
general of the United States Army for 
1920 (p. 21): “When the more destructive 
effects of the military agents are considered 
with the greater prevalence of artillery mis- 
siles and the undoubtedly higher percentage 
of multiple wounds, it is evident that the 
saving of life was much greater than is ap- 
parent from these figures.” 

The influence of Pasteur’s researches on 
the curtailment of disease has been no less 
marvelous through investigators who took 
up the study of the worst destroyers of 
humanity, as a result of the great French- 
man’s work. Before his labors enlightened 
the world, the mortality from many diseases 
was terrific. In the French Campaign in 
1802 in San Domingo the deaths from yel- 
low fever, malaria and dysentery were so 
numerous that reinforcements could not ar- 
rive in time to replace the dead soldiers. 
Every man died. 

Today, all these three diseases have been 
mastered. While the role of the mosquito 
had been suspected by many—Dr. Carlos 


[ 106 ] 


MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. 
Finlay, of Havana, in particular (1881)— 
tests to ascertain this fact were necessary. 
As no animal was inoculable, the physicians 
and army assistants who were conducting a 
research in Havana risked their own lives. 
Prominent among these were Major Walter 
Reed, Private James Carroll of the U. S. 
Army and Doctors Aristides Agramonte 
and Jesse W. Lazear, the latter of whom 
died. Major Gorgas (our late Surgeon 
General) then screened yellow fever patients 
and destroyed mosquitoes. Havana, South 
America, our Southern States, among other 
regions, have had no epidemics of yellow 
fever since, although they had recurred prac- 
tically yearly for over one hundred and fifty 
years! 

Far worse even as man destroyer was 
malaria. A malignant form, for instance, 
killed three hundred thousand natives in 
India within two months—more victims of 
the infectious mosquito. It was the curse 
of our Southern States and of all tropical 
countries in particular. Again, intelligent 
protection against this insect by General 
Gorgas reduced the mortality from nearly 
twenty per cent. during the French Panama 


[ 107 ] 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


Canal operations—which ruined the enter- 
prise at the time—to but eight-tenths of one 
per cent. Everybody knows today that 
where there is no infective mosquito there 
is no malaria, and is familiar with the many 
measures available to destroy mosquitoes. 

Dysentery, the third man killer of the 
tropics, has also had to yield to the action 
of emetine after its cause, a parasite, had 
been found. 

Children with diphtheria three decades 
ago, were destroyed by this dread disease at 
the rate of at least thirty per cent. Now, 
the use of antitoxin on the first day saves 
practically every case. ‘This was rendered 
possible by the labors of Dr. Behring, of 
Germany, and Dr. Roux, of the Paris 
Pasteur Institute, originally prompted by 
Pasteur’s initial discovery. 

Last, but by no means least of the few 
examples which it is possible to submit here, 
is typhoid fever. During both the Civil and 
the Spanish American Wars, the mortality 
was extremely high. During the World 
War the mortality was reduced at such a 
rate by antityphoid vaccination in the U. S. 
Army from September 1, 1917 to May 2, 


[ 108 ] 


MAN’S INTELLECT AS HIS DIVINE SPIRIT. 


1919, that despite the millions of men ex- 
posed, there were but two hundred and 
thirteen deaths. Colonel Russel, head of the 
service, calculated that if the conditions of 
the Civil War had prevailed in the recent 
war, the death rate would have reached over 
fifty-one thousand, while under those of the 
Spanish War, it would have exceeded sixty- 
eight thousand. In other words, it is safe 
to say that nearly one hundred and twenty 
thousand young men were saved from death 
on this one item alone! ‘And why? Because 
Drs. Pfeiffer and Kolle, in Germany, and 
Dr. Wright, of England, had found that 
vaccination started a defensive reaction in 
the body against the specific germs of 
typhoid fever—another wonderful result 
traceable back to the original labors of Louis 
Pasteur. 

What every one should bear in mind in 
this connection is that it is practically cer- 
tain that every family in the United States 
today includes one or more members who 
would have passed away if the pioneer labors 
of this one scientist, who loved humanity— 
and who also did much for animals by arrest- 
ing the swine plague, the chicken cholera, ete. 


[ 109 ] 





EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


and also the many diseases met in animals 
as well as in man—had not placed the initial 
steel forged barriers in the way. 

And what was the creed of Louis Pasteur, 
termed by an editorial writer in the London 
Standard, “the most perfect man who has 
ever entered the Kingdom of Science” when, 
I might say, he entered the Kingdom of 
Heaven? 

In Pasteur’s own words, it was as follows: 
“He who proclaims the existence of the In- 
fintte—and none can avoid it—accumulates 
in that affirmation more of the supernatural 
than is to be found in all the miracles of all 
the religions; for the notion of the Infinite 
presents the double character that it forces 
itself upon us and yet is incomprehensible. 
When this notion seizes upon our under-— 
standing,)we can but) kneeliam a2 lesce 
everywhere the inevitable expression of the 
Infinite in the world; through it, the super- 
natural is at the bottom of every heart” 

. “Blessed is he who carries within 
himself a god, an ideal, and who obeys it; 
ideal of art, ideal of science, ideal of the 
gospel virtues; therein lie the springs of 
great thoughts and great actions; they all 


[110 ] 





EVE NOT A WOMAN BUT THE DIVINE SPIRIT. 


reflect light from the Infinite.’! (See 
Frontispiece. ) 

Evolution, by making it possible for us to 
realize fully the physical nature of our body, 
reveals to us the spirituality of such a man 
as Pasteur, and this spirituality itself leads 
up to its Divine source. We must recognize, 
therefore, that far from being an enemy of 
mankind, evolution is one of the greatest 
elucidative contributions to religion of all 
times. 


EVE NOT THE “FIRST WOMAN” BUT THE 
DIVINE SPIRIT WHICH A CHILD RE- 
CEIVES THROUGH ITS MOTHER. 

We are dealing here with the very founda- 
tion of religious thought. Evolution, as in- 
terpreted in the foregoing pages, has shown 
that even with the Darwinian theory elim- 
inated, man, like all other animals, developed 
gradually from his own original cell. His 
creation, therefore, as usually apprehended 
from Biblical text, with Adam and Eve as 
the “original pair,” can no longer stand. 
Adam, we have seen, does not mean a special 


1“Tife of Pasteur” by Valléry-Radot. Introduction by 
William Osler, 1924. 


(111 ] 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


individual but “man” in general. ‘This, how- 
ever, leaves the identity of Eve in question, 
particularly in view of the statement in 
Genesis 2: 22 that of 

“The rib which the Lord God had taken 


from man, made He a woman.” 


Although the “rib” problem has never 
hitherto been explained, we have, in the 
Biblical version of the creation of woman, an 
example of the powers of observation exist- 
ing even long before the original text of the 
Bible was written, for two small glands (the 
adrenals which by their secretions insure pul- 
monary and tissue respiration we have seen) 
located just above the kidneys and resting 
posteriorly against the lowest false rib on each 
side materially influence sex development. 

The ancients had evidently observed, as 
physicians occasionally do today, and veter- 
inarians likewise in the lower animals, that 
a tumor of the organs referred to caused 
striking changes in the body at large and 
influenced markedly the sex in children. Such 
a tumor, especially the type we now term 
“hypernephroma,” produces in a boy enor- 
mous development of the entire body; a boy 
of seven years, for instance, being trans- 


[112 ] 


EVE NOT A WOMAN BUT THE DIVINE SPIRIT. 


formed in a couple of years into a full grown 
man with beard, ete., and sometimes with 
such muscular development as to constitute 
the “boy Hercules’ of shows. In such a 
case reported recently, for example, a boy of 
four years and ten months had a full beard 
and could throw a man in a wrestling match. 
Such tumors are much more common in girls 
than in boys, however. The important point 
in this connection, as regards the “rib” 
mystery, is that when the tumor occurs in 
girls or in any female animal, the cow, for 
instance, it causes besides abnormal virility, 
transformation into a male. But in some 
individuals, tumors of the same glands pro- 
duce double sex or hermaphroditism. 

These growths, which occur behind or very 
close to the lower ribs, are the only ones 
which influence sex transformations, and on 
the basis of many cases met by them in 
human beings and the lower animals, the 
ancient observers doubtless reached their con- 
clusion that the first woman was created from 
man. 

The “rib creation” of woman, however, 
even though based on observed phenomena, 
is a mere makeshift introduced, perhaps by 


8 [113 J 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


the Chaldeans, to meet a difficult situation, 
but in no way belonging to the revealed 
Biblical text. 

The need for such an explanation suggests 
itself when we realize that the so-called 
“Adam” was supposed to be alone in the 
world, being its “first man,” and that, there 
being no wife for him to render the usual 
process of reproduction possible, the first 
“offspring” had to be supplied by “Adam” 
himself. The effects of tumors under the 
ribs afforded suggestive food for a plausible 
explanation, at least for the primitive minds 
such as those addressed or taught at the time. 

Analyzed in its higher sense, however, why 
should the male body be made the origin or 
source of the female body even in this sym- 
bolic crude way? ‘The answer to this ques- 
tion appears when the meaning of other 
verses concerned with the process are ana- 
lyzed. Thus, as stated in Genesis 2:18: 

“The Lord God said: It is not good 
that the man should be alone, I will make 
him an helpmate for him.” 

An essential point in this verse is that 
“the man” is used, meaning mankind at large, 
while in the next verse it is plainly inferred 


f1i4] 


EVE NOT A WOMAN BUT THE DIVINE SPIRIT. 
that “there was not found a helpmate for 
him” in all cattle, fowl and beasts in the 
field. No lower animal, no other species, 
could serve so lofty a mission. Mankind 
alone therefore, a single species and family 
as established by science, the Hominide, 
could become (““become” because we are deal- 
ing here with the primordial human cell en- 
dowed with its power to assume its Divine 
function) the “temple of the Living Soul.” 
Hence the verse in Genesis 1: 27: 

**So God created man in his own image; 
in the image of God created He him; 
male and female created He them.” 

That it was actually the primordial cell 
which was endowed with the power of as- 
suming its role as temple of the Divine soul, 
after having undergone its evolution to the 
human status is also indicated by the ques- 
tion in Matthew 19: 4: 

“Have ye not read that He which made 
them at the beginning made them male and 
female?” 

Analysis of the “rib” problem, in the light 
of modernized evolution, thus harmonizes 
with the conclusions previously reached con- 
cerning the immeasurable superiority of man 


[115 ] 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


and woman over and above all other animal 
species—due to the presence in them of the 
Divine Spirit. 

Elimination of Eve as the temptress of 
Adam only serves to bring to light her sub- 
lime role as a spiritual entity. Indeed, 
every bit of scientific knowledge we possess 
points to her divine role: Even long before 
the Biblical story was recorded, and over 
2000 years before the Christian era, stone 
tablets in our archeological museum at the 
University of Pennsylvania, written in 
Sumerian, the oldest of the Babylonian 
languages and read recently by assistant pro- 
fessor Edward Chiera, attest to her identity 
as the greatest benefactress of the human 
race. 

Why the abominable prevailing interpre- 
tation of the story of human creation which, 
besides the errors already noted, makes of 
“Eve” the mother of mankind, its first 
woman, a temptress, not to mention the de- 
grading insinuations it provokes? Again, 
have we to contend with a misinterpretation 
of the Hebrew text. 

In the preceding chapter we saw that the 
word “‘life’ used in the verse (Genesis 2: 7) 


[116 ] 


EVE NOT A WOMAN BUT THE DIVINE SPIRIT. 


which states that God blew the “breath of 
life’ into the nostrils of man, did not mean 
the usual interpretation of life, but “spirit,” 
God’s spirit, and that because of this Divine 
act man “became a living soul.” We also 
saw that Adam means simply “man’’—man 
in general. “Eve” stands in a similar posi- 
tion; it is not a personal name; it means 
“life” (eva). If, now, one ascertains what 
the word “life” is in Hebrew, it is found to 
be chaiyim. 'This word, however, has several 
other meanings; among these are “the breath 
of life,’ the “soul or mind,” “the Divine 
Spirit”—a suggestive aggregate. 

The trend of all this will perhaps be made 
clear by repeating I Corinthians 15: 44, and 
appending to each segment of the text its 
own meaning: 


“There is a natural body” (the human 
physical body) and 

“There is a spiritual body” (Eva, the 
breath of life or Divine Spirit or Soul). 

The original Mosaic doctrine refers to 
Eva as “the Being which is, was, and will 
be,” thus emphasizing the element of per- 
petuity, and forming part of the Very God- 
head as a spiritual entity in which sex, a ter- 


pabbey 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


restrial factor of physical development on 
earth, we have seen, plays no role. “In the 
psychic genesis,” writes Schuré! “the human 
soul is known as Aisha, another name for 
Eve. Its abode is heaven, where it lives 
happily in the Divine ether, but without 
knowledge of itself. It enjoys heaven with- 
out understanding it. To understand it, it 
must have been forgotten and then recalled; 
to love it, it must have been lost and re- 
conquered. This it cannot do without suf- 
fering.(/07)) <a va weyleld smtom tiemcesi ne 
and falls. It ceases to be purely a soul, a 
sidereal body living solely upon the Divine 
ether; it enters a material body . f; 

It is Hva then, the Divine Spirit from 
heaven, which penetrates the forming child 
regardless of sex, an attribute which forms 
part, we have seen, of the physical develop- 
ment of the body proper. Indeed, as stated 
Ema k Cam elice lo) ie 

“He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost 


even from his mother’s womb.” 


It is here that the maternal role becomes a 
part of the Divine mission. While each of 


1Schuré: “Les Grands Initiés,” Paris, 1925, p. 192. 
[ 118 ] 


EVE NOT A WOMAN BUT THE DIVINE SPIRIT. 
the parental pair possesses its own individual 
spirit acquired at birth, the mother alone 
stands as intermediary for the transmission 
of Kiva to her offspring. In other words, 
she does not out of her own spirit contribute 
to her child’s: she transmits to it the heavenly 
spirit of Eva, a Divine spark from the God- 
head. A mother thus fulfills the most sub- 
lime role in all Nature: as the direct link be- 
tween God and mankind. 

This is clearly implied in Genesis 4:1, 
when Eve 


“conceived and bare Cain and said, 
I have gotten a man from the Lord.” 


while in Genesis 3: 20: 


“Adam called his wife’s name Eve be- 
cause she was the mother of all living.” 


If we now recall that the meaning of “liv- 
ing” in Genesis 1: 27 is the Divine Spirit and 
that Eva itself has precisely the same mean- 
ing, the direct connection between Eva and 
all mankind, entering as it does every human 
offspring, will become self-evident. 


Nearly fifty years of close contact with 
human suffering have impressed upon me 
that the most beautiful and soul stirring word 


[119 ] 


EVOLUTION PROVES THAT MAN IS DIVINE. 


in any language judging from the many 
virtues that it implies, is “Mother.” Men of 
science, it is true, observe the dawn of the 
maternal instinct even at the lowest rung 
of the animal ladder, that is to say, in the 
lowest of animals, but if to this instinct we 
add the human mother’s role as custodian 
and intermediary for the transmission to her 
offspring of what is most precious in the 
whole Universe, the Divine Spark, we can 
realize why “Mother” means so much to us 
all. 

Thus it is that man and woman become the 
custodians of a Spiritual Body or the Temple 
of the Living God, but with the body as a 
physical product of evolution. 


[ 120 ] 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE DIVINE CREATIVE AND DYNAMIC 
MEDIUM IN NATURE. 


THE PRESENCE OF GOD IN MATTER 
AS SUSTAINED BY PHILOSOPHY. 


pas complexity and contradictory nature 

of the various philosophical doctrines 
concerning the existence of God, the char- 
acteristics of matter in general and of the 
atom in particular, have, especially in recent 
years, practically submerged the fact that 
atheism, as represented by the various doc- 
trines of materialism which deny the exist- 
ence of a Divinity, has been losing ground at 
least as steadily and proportionately as 
science has progressed in all directions, while 
the deistic doctrines have as steadily gained 
ground. 

Atheism. After the great Lavoisier, about 
the middle of the eighteenth century, had 
laid the foundation of modern chemistry, the 
nature of the atoms constituting matter and 
their physical relations attracted much atten- 
tion. In so far as the religious side of the 
question was concerned, various writers at- 
tributed to “chance” the process through 


[ 121 ] 


DIVINE ENERGY IN NATURE. 


which atoms formed molecules and the multi- 
tudinous kinds and forms of matter, includ- 
ing living things. ‘The law of probabilities, 
however, showed that “chance” would prob- 
ably strike the right spot and do the right 
thing only once in over three million at- 
tempts even with ten elements, while the 
wonderful order and precision observed on 
all sides in nature contrasted strikingly with 
the blind and unintelligent attributes of a 
supposedly inert substance. The French 
chemist Dumas, the mentor and friend of 
Pasteur, disposed of the idea of chance, how- 
ever, when he said, “chance is very clever, in 
fact so clever that it should be given another 
name.’ Indeed, so much was claimed for 
this: so-called “mechanistic theory,” which 
could not be demonstrated, that it is now 
only of historical interest. 

Another form of materialism which flour- 
ished about the same period was that of 
Hume and his school, according to which 
nothing that could not be traced to a defi- 
nite cause—God being regarded as beyond 
the limits of the scheme since spirituality in 
any of its forms was indefinite—could be re- 
garded as other than a blind belief. But 


[ 122 ] 





GOD IN MATTER AND PHILOSOPHY. 


this school, which included many prominent 
scholars, and that of Renan, whose doctrine 
was “the admission of the supernatural rele- 
gates one beyond the limits of science,” have 
both had to yield to the contributions of 
scientific research, which is steadily breaking 
down barriers on all sides. 

Can either school tell us, for instance, the 
nature of the most powerful source of energy 
known to science—the universal ether, which 
supplies us with heat, light, electricity, radio- 
activity and many other marvels? Is this 
wondrous ether which we only know by 
name not “a definite cause,’ or beyond the 
limits of science because, being unknown, it 
is termed “supernatural?” 

I might recall in this connection the verse 
in Hebrews 11: 8, that: 

“Things which are seen were not made 
of things which do appear.” 

A third form of materialism is that in 
which everything reduces itself to movements 
in matter, the spiritual soul or self being 
non-existent. Our senses alone are our 
sources of knowledge. While this is true 
as far as the acquisition of experience and 
learning through the senses: hearing, vision, 


[ 123 | 


DIVINE ENERGY IN NATURE. 


touch, ete., is concerned, it leaves, in the 
light of Tyndall’s, Priestley’s and _ other 
philosophers’ interpretation, an “impassable 
chasm” between material and psychic phe- 
nomena. How, in-other words, is the knowl- 
edge acquired by the brain through the 
senses coordinated and built up into new 
ideas? Again, conscience, morality, virtue, 
honor and other qualities of mind, which have 
nothing to do with the senses, are not ac- 
counted for. 

Another great gap appears when the men- 
tal attributes of man are compared with those 
of animals. We saw in the preceding chapter 
that this gulf is enormous. Why, if every- 
thing is reduced to movements in matter, 
should this psychic difference occur? Why 
the distance between such a mental giant 
as Laplace, the great mathematician and 
author of the nebular theory, for instance, 
and the highest mental accomplishment of the 
finest ape ever born? Who ever saw a 
moral cat or a religious dog? What animal 
other than man could create a Beethoven 
symphony or even a lullaby? 

On the whole, it is self-evident that atheism 
is not sustained by any department of science, 


[124 J 


GOD IN MATTER AND PHILOSOPHY. 

pure or applied. No scientist today would 
or could deny the existence of the univer- 
sal, intangible and imponderable medium 
previously referred to, the ether, whose stu- 
pendous workings he observes on all sides. 
He is not dealing today with “an atom” 
which the philosophers of the last two centu- 
ries treated merely as the smallest subdivision 
of matter and as a necessary component of 
molecules and chemical formulas, but with 
an almost almighty atom, next to which the 
T N T used in shells during the World War 
is virtually inert. As the fundamental 
factors in all atoms, which are minute replicas 
of our solar system, it is being studied by a 
special set of scholars—Miullikan, Rutherford, 
Bohr, Einstein, Perrin and many others— 
and is revealing powers and properties of 
which electricity and even radioactivity af- 
ford today but an approximate idea. And 
all these due to an invisible medium, beyond 
the reach of our senses! 

Materialistic Theism. By this term, I 
mean various doctrines in which the Absolute 
is not deemed a separate entity of external 
origin, but an immanent active component 
of all matter. 


[125 ] 


DIVINE ENERGY IN NATURE. 


The best known of these doctrines is 
Agnosticism. It does not deny God, but 
teaches that He is beyond our reasoning 
powers, on the general principle that man 
can only take cognizance of external phe- 
nomena through his senses, nothing being 
known outside our mental processes. Evi- 
dences concerning the origin of the universe, 
future life, ete., are cast aside as mere in- 
ferences. It is the school of Huxley, Spencer, 
Comte and others, and is but a reproduction 
of the skeptical school of the Greek philos- 
ophers of old. 

This doctrine is subject to the same ob- 
jections that militated against the third of 
the forms of materialism previously de- 
scribed with an “Absolute,” however, as an 
inevitable factor. It does not take into ac- 
count the many mental attributes such as 
conscience, morality, ete., which have noth- 
ing to do with the senses, and also the 
enormous gap in mental powers between 
man and the lower animals. In the pres- 
ent connection, however, agnosticism has 
contributed its share to progress by analyz- 
ing deeply many sides of the question, 
though even then unable to deny the exist- 


[ 126 | 


GOD IN MATTER AND PHILOSOPHY, 





ence of the Deity, or of many evidences 
of a mind behind all natural phenomena. 
Agnosticism is in reality but a form of 
deism, in which the Divinity is given no 
name. 

Another well-known doctrine is Monitsm, in 
which one ultimate being or principle ex- 
plains all the evolutional phenomena and 
activities of the universe, all matter being 
endowed with feeling and power of motion. 
As generally given in books, however, an 
important feature of the doctrine is over- 
looked, 2.e., the rédle attributed to the Divin- 
ity. This was clearly outlined by Haeckel, 
the sponsor of monism, in 1892, in an address 
at Altenburg, Germany. E:xtolling the union 
of faith and science, this great naturalist 
said: “Our idea of monism, which alone 
adapts itself to the most elevated knowledge 
of nature, recognizes the spirit of God in 
all things.” 

Very little can be said against this theory, 
which has been sustained by many observers, 
though erroneously as a purely materialistic 
one, since it advocates an immanent God 
within nature, a dominating truth, as will be 
shown later. 


[127 ] 


DIVINE ENERGY IN NATURE. 


All this apples also to a certain extent to 
Kant’s doctrine, which though reducing the 
Divine Power to a limited field, that of utiliz- 
ing an existing great universal force to attain 
His beneficent ends, teaches that we should 
believe in Him as the source of moral law, 
and that He will eventually cause it to 
prevail. 

Of major importance in the present con- 
nection 1s Pantheism, in which God is con- 
sidered as forming part of the material 
world, but in which the Deity is undergoing 
development along with matter itself. While 
this doctrine, formulated by Hegel, lies mid- 
way between atheism and theism, another 
form of pantheism, the older, defended by 
Hpicurus and Lucretius and in more modern 
times by Bruno, Spinoza and Leibnitz with 
various modifications, merged the Deity and 
the soul or spirit as a force pervading nature, 
which thus possesses in itself the principle 
of development or evolution. 

While evolution is clearly, we have seen, a 
characteristic of living things in both plant 
and animal life, nothing tangible demon- 
strates that, after the stages of development 
or formation which the earth traversed until 


[ 128 ] 


GOD IN MATTER AND PHILOSOPHY. 

animal life appeared on it, it has itself under- 
gone a continuous process of evolution. 
Cosmogony shows, however, that solar sys- 
tems as indicated by the white, yellow and 
red stars, are born, live a prolonged period, 
then gradually die, as do human beings. 
This is not “evolution,” however, in the 
sense of continuity this term implies; it is 
the mere series of progressions followed by 
decline which all temporary things in the 
universe undergo. 

The fundamental law of the conservation 
of energy, which does not permit quantita- 
tive variations even in the universe as a 
whole, would have to undergo a transforma- 
tion if pantheistic evolution at all prevailed. 

Summarizing the various doctrines out- 
lined in this section and beginning with those 
under Materialistic Theism, six salient de- 
ductions appear to be warranted: (1) Un- 
like the purely materialistic doctrines re- 
viewed, they are only partly vulnerable when 
analyzed. (2) They are all up to a certain 
extent, constructive. (3) They have per- 
sisted during many thousands of years, some 
of them, pantheism, for instance, prevailing 
extensively in the East, India, particularly, 


9 [ 129 ] 


DIVINE ENERGY IN NATURE. 


even now. (4) All their sponsors, even 
the agnostic, imply the existence of a 
supreme power. (5) Even though their in- 
terpretation of God is such as to endow 
Him with a role in which He is only merged 
with matter as an inherent or immanent 
principle, the all-important fact remains that 
(6), despite differences in detail, a large 
number of philosophers and scientists of the 
first order both ancient and modern, after 
fathoming the whole question to its very 
depths, and from different angles, have 
recognized the existence of God whether they 
characterize Him by name or not. 

The purely materialistic doctrines, irrelev- 
ant as it may appear, have also contributed 
much to our knowledge of the question as a 
whole. Their negation of any participation 
of the Divinity in the workings of nature in 
general and matter in particular has im- 
posed upon them the necessity of inquiring 
deeply into the nature of “inert” matter and 
of the forms of energy, force, will or intelli- 
gence which endow it with the various forms 
of activity it manifests. Their inability to 
identify this source of energy or its nature 
has caused the materialists, while denying 


[ 130 ] 


THE DIVINE CREATION AND SCIENCE. 


the existence of God, to fall back upon the 
universal ether as the source of all forms 
of energy in keeping with all scientists, in- 
cluding the materialistic theists. 

We are thus brought to the realization 
that all sincere workers, whether they be 
materialists or materialistic theists, are con- 
tributing valuable knowledge, and that while 
the materialistic theists have accepted God 
as an immanent active component of matter, 
the pure materialists, as do the materialistic 
theists and all well-informed scientists today, 
accept the universal ether as the source of 
all physical phenomena attributed to God. 


The next question in order, therefore, is 
whether the ether is not the agent through 
which God exercises His powers? 


THE DIVINE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE, 
INCLUDING OUR SOLAR SYSTEM, AS 
SUSTAINED BY SCIENCE. 


The wonderful order which reigns through- 
out the whole universe, the mathematical pre- 
cision with which the heavenly bodies travel 
in space, the splendor and multiplicity of 
solar systems such as our own, with their mil- 


[131 ] 


DIVINE ENERGY IN NATURE. 


lions of brilliant stars and the many other 
wonders which it is our privilege to behold, 
can no more be attributed to “chance” than 
could the multitude of combinations of inert 
matter according to- the “mechanistic” theory 
referred to under the preceding heading. If, 
as then stated a group of ten atoms would 
under that theory, according to the law of 
probabilities, combine normally once in over 
three million times, the likelihood that the 
organization and order of the universe under 
the same law could occur at all is so infinites- 
imal as to preclude any need of computation. 
A primary, coordinative and dominating in- 
telligence imposes itself from so many direc- 
tions, in fact, that, as Voltaire said: “If 
God did not exist He would have to be in- 
vented.” 

We have seen that many philosophers and 
scientists have, indirectly or directly, sus- 
tained the Deistic conception of Creation. 
While Socrates first urged the need of a 
sovereign intelligence to bring order in the 
primitive chaos, Descartes held that matter 
out of which the whole universe was built 
was first disseminated by God. Newton at- 
tributed the circular motion of the planets 


[ 132 ] 


THE DIVINE CREATION AND SCIENCE, 





in space to Divine influence. At the 1925 
meeting of the British Association, Sir Oliver 
Lodge, one of the greatest physicists of 
modern times, said: “I believe that creation 
is continual creation in the depths of space. 
Things may happen whereof we can have no 
conception. When one considers that we are 
receiving the light of stars which shone thou- 
sands of years ago and that this self-same 
light is only reaching us now, and when we 
consider that the same laws of physics and 
chemistry apply to all worlds and universes 
and not to our one earth, it can only testify 
to the unity of mind that created and is 
creating it.” 

The “continual creation in the depth of 
space” referred to by Lodge recalls essential 
features of evolution emphasized when this 
process was described, new forms of life be- 
ing evolved today as they have in the past. 
The different colors of the stars bespeak 
the same evolutional process in their mutual 
relations, although, as stated on page 129, 
like all else, they eventually die. It is the 
totality of these radiant bodies which per- 
petuates evolution. Thus, according to the 
observations and calculations of various as- 


[ 133 ] 


DIVINE ENERGY IN NATURE. 


tronomers, ninety-five per cent. of the stars 
are white, indicating full activity, while the 
remaining five per cent. are either yellow 
stars, indicating intermediate periods of for- 
mation or beginning decline, or red stars, in- 
dicating greatly reduced activity. Evolution 
thus asserts itself in the heavens as it does 
on earth. 

That the same laws of physics and chem- 
istry apply to all the universe is also based 
on the soundest scientific foundation. Proof 
of this fact was afforded by the use of a 
marvelous and withal simple instrument, the 
spectroscope. The application of this in- 
strument, known as “spectroscopy” or “spec- 
trum analysis,” first practiced by Newton in 
1666 and greatly developed by a German 
scientist, Fraunhofer, in 1817, enables phy- 
sicists to ascertain the exact nature of the 
chemical elements in space, the stars, the 
sun’s chromosphere and gaseous protuber- 
ances, nebulz, comets, aurore, and even light- 
ning! Spectrum analysis is so precise that 
Ramsay, the distinguished British physicist, 
found a gas in the sun which he appropri- 
ately termed “helium.” At first this gas 
could not be found on earth, but finally, after 


[134 ] 


THE DIVINE CREATION AND SCIENCE, 


painstaking investigations, he discovered it 
in a mineral in Norway. Other investigators 
have since found it elsewhere, including the 
United States. 

The physical side is no less marvelous than 
the chemical. Despite the stupendous dis- 
tanees to be taken into account, the rate at 
which the bodies in space are moving can 
be computed by the shifting of the lines or 
combination of lines in the spectrum. The 
speed with which our own solar system 
travels in its own orbit can also be computed 
through mathematics and another marvelous 
product of human genius, the telescope as 
it is today, evolved from the modest instru- 
ment of Galileo, the Italian scientist. 

On the whole, it has become evident that 
the chemistry of the entire universe corres- 
ponds, even though far from having been 
scrutinized to its depths, with that of our 
own planet. 

The paramount importance of the fore- 
going conclusion appears when the nebular 
hypothesis of Laplace, formulated by this 
great astronomical mathematician in 1796, is 
analyzed in the light of more modern obser- 
vations, omitting, however, modes of forma- 


[135 ] 


DIVINE ENERGY IN NATURE. 


tion, spirals, etc., described by different 
astronomers, which may not eventually prove 
to be nebulae, and other theories which are 
still debatable. 

The development of a solar system, such 
as our sun and planets, is first characterized 
by the appearance of an enormous cloud of 
gas, the future nebula, of which there are 
several hundred thousands in various stages 
of evolution, especially about the poles of the 
Milky Way. At first, the gaseous mass oc- 
cupies a space much greater than the solar 
system it is destined to form, but it is eventu- 
ally transformed into a great whirlpool, the 
axis of which in time becomes a glowing 
nucleus or kernel, the precursor of a swn. 
The gaseous whirlpool and its nucleus then 
undergo gradual contraction, the whole mass 
becoming flattened and lens-shaped. 

The external spirals of the rotating mass 
tend themselves in some instances, by becom- 
ing detached at one end from the whirling 
mass, to become much smaller whirlpools or 
nebule which also form a central nucleus, 
destined later to become a planet. Several 
of these secondary nebule are sometimes 
formed, as is the case in our solar system, 


[ 136 ] 


THE DIVINE CREATION AND SCIENCE, 


the planets cooling off gradually as they as- 
sume their normal density and size. The 
same process attends the evolution of satel- 
lites such as our moon, which are formed 
by external spirals derived from their planet 
and also due to the condensation and cooling 
of the nucleus or kernel of each spiral. 

The rotation of the planets around our 
sun and the similar motion of satellites 
around their planets are but a continuation 
of their mutual relations in space. While 
at first they are glowing masses, their con- 
traction to their final state is attended, we 
have just seen, by gradual cooling. Their 
sun, however, becomes less dense and retains 
much of its nebular heat. It is this heat 
which radiates so beneficially on earth for 
the sustenance of all plant and animal life 
including man. 

Comparison of this evolutional process of 
the solar system with the two first verses of 
the first chapter of Genesis is elucidative in 
various ways, especially when the original 
Hebrew text, as translated recently by Pro- 
fessor Fagnani,! is taken into account. ‘The 


1“The Beginnings of History According to the Jews.” A. 
and C. Boni, N. Y., 1925. 


[137 ] 


DIVINE ENERGY IN NATURE. 


Biblical text, according to the English ver- 
sion is as follows: 


1. “In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth. 

2. And the earth was without form and 
void; and darkness was upon the face of 
the deep. And the Spirit of God moved 
upon the face of the waters.” 


The original Hebrew text says nothing 
about ‘“‘created”’ in the sense, as Professor 
Fagnani well states, of “creating out of noth- 
ing.’ ‘The word “created” conveys a wrong 
meaning therefore. The Hebrew word used 
is a synonym of “make.” ‘The important 
modification this brings about is that God 
did not create the universe out of nothing 
but that He made it out of something, i.e., 
something in space. In other words, God, 
out of the ether of space and the matter it 
contains, made the nebule, including that of 
our own solar system, 2.e., its sun and planets, 
which of course include our earth—all on 
lines confirmed by scientific knowledge. 

The second verse sustains all this by in- 
dicating that the earth did not exist in space 
(“the deep”) before the “Spirit of God”’ in- 
tervened. But the word “spirit” here has 


[ 138 ] 


THE DIVINE CREATION AND SCIENCE, 





a far-reaching meaning, for it indicates that 
it is not God’s individual self which pervades 
space, but what Professor Fagnani’s transla- 
tion gives it in Hebrew “the spirit of (or 
wind of) Elohim,” in the sense “of an egg 
. being brooded over by the power of 
Elohim” or God. Briefly, from my view- 
point, the power which endows matter with 
the many creative attributes observed in 
space is not God Himself, but a spiritual 
dynamic mediwm contributed by Him to 
all nature, t.e., Divine energy. | 

It is the “intrinsic power of motion” of 
Aristotle, the so-called “essence” in matter, 
without which, owing to its inherent inertia, 
it cannot do work. It is the unlimited, in- 
telligent, independent agency to which chem- 
ical affinity, chemotaxis and other forms of 
attraction that foster combination are due. 
As such it is autonomous or self-acting, and 
is thus independent functionally of God after 
having been bestowed by Him upon nature 
at large. 

While both the Bible and science sustain 
the foregoing analysis of the evolution of the 
universal solar systems, including our own 
and the earth, it becomes a question whether 


[ 189 ] 


DIVINE ENERGY IN NATURE. 


the universe itself, including the matter out 
of which solar systems, nebulz, asteroids, etc., 
are formed, were originally created by God, 
as stated in Genesis 1: 1: 
“In the beginning, God created the 
heaven and the earth.” 

That “heaven” refers to the universe is 
suggested by its meaning in Hebrew, she- 
mayin, “heaved up things;” while the word 
“universe” does not occur in Hebrew. As 
we have seen, however, the word “create” 
is also absent in the Hebrew text, and the 
word “made” means a production out of 
something. Could God create the universe 
out of nothing, in the light of science? As 
will be shown when the properties of the 
universal ether are reviewed, much evidence 
attests to the fact that it is through this 
medium that the Divine creation occurs. 


CALAMITIES NOT ATTRIBUTABLE TO GOD AS 
PUNISHMENT OR RETRIBUTION. 


An all-important feature of the question 
must be clearly apprehended in this connec- 
tion. It is that the Divine medium of which 
the universe is constituted is an automatic 


[ 140 ] 


CALAMITIES NOT DUE TO GOD. 


agent. Even though created to carry on 
universal functions bewildering in_ their 
splendor, utility and scope, this medium, 
judging from human, or even humane, 
standards, is not always beneficent. In fact, 
it is often blind and immeasurably brutal. 
Earthquakes, tornadoes and other calamities 
which sacrifice children, women and men by 
the thousands, hundreds of thousands at 
times, regardless of their innocence or worth, 
are vivid reminders of this fact. Nor are 
physical cataclysms limited to our planet; 
they are well known to occur in space and 
also in the sun. 

Analyzed in the light of science, however, 
they are all exaggerations of highly impor- 
tant terrestrial and climatic functions. ‘They 
are quite independent of God’s will. To 
anathematize Him, therefore, when sorrow 
stirs the emotions to their very depths, is 
both wrong and unjust. 

“The Lord is good to all; and His 
tender mercies are over all His works.” 
(Psalm 145: 9.) 

Very few people realize, doubtless, that 
voleanoes contribute to the preservation of 
life. Indeed, carbon is an important acces- 


[141] 


DIVINE ENERGY IN NATURE. 


sory to the air for the maintenance of life, 
and is locked up mainly in sedimentary rock, 
coal deposits, etc., deep down in the earth. 
Volcanoes serve to supply the air with this 
element by their periodical eruptions. Pro- 
fessor Schuchert,! of Yale, recalls in this 
connection that “if volcanism should cease it 
would not be long before the existence of 
life would be impossible because of the ab- 
sence of carbon,” and adds that “if there 
were again as much life as there is at present, 
all the carbon of the atmosphere would be 
in living plants and animals, and if such a 
condition were possible, death would come to 
them all. Therefore life and its abundance 
at any time are conditioned by the amount 
of this gas present in the atmosphere.” 
While earthquakes and volcanic eruptions 
are often disastrous as regards human life 
and property, the danger zones are well 
known, while, conversely, there are enormous 
areas of land practically devoid of danger, 
1.€., non-voleanic areas, all over the earth. 
Of course it would be unthinkable to expect 
the millions of residents of the Pacific Coast 


1 Schuchert: “Evolution of the Earth,” New Haven, 1924, 
p. 52 


[ 142 ] 


CALAMITIES NOT DUE TO GOD. 


from Alaska to Cape Horn, or those of 
Japan, Southern Italy, etc., to abandon these 
countries because they are volcanic. The 
fact remains, however, that it 1s man’s own 
choice, if he elects to spend his life and ex- 
pose it and also his own family to destruc- 
tion. It is obviously not a Divine fiat. 
Again, while fogs are often sources of 
danger to ships at sea, flying air-ships and 
planes, they constitute with the wind, though 
itself extremely destructive when converted 
into storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc., ex- 
cessive manifestations or perversions of an- 
other composite function upon which our 
very life depends. ‘Thus, fogs are composed, 
as is well known, of minute droplets of water 
evaporated by the radiant action of the sun 
from the surface of seas, lakes, lagoons, 
rivers, etc. All rise to higher levels in the 
atmosphere, forming clouds. Disturbances 
of equilibrium caused in the air temperature 
by the sun, also, then cause air currents -or 
winds, which in turn drive the fog and clouds 
over great land areas. Here, colder air cur- 
rents produce condensation of the minute 
droplets, forming the clouds into drops 
which, in turn, fall to the ground as rain. 


[143 ] 


DIVINE ENERGY IN NATURE. 


Hiveryone knows the influence of droughts 
on crops, and that to all animals, including 
man, water, pure or merged in with other 
beverages and foods, is a sine qua non of life. 
Lack of water kills much sooner than lack 
of food, being essential to every cell and 
every vital function. 

This wonderful sequence of sun, waters, 
fog, clouds and rain for the maintenance of 
all life on earth cannot but recall the prop- 
erties and inherent intelligence of the ether 
of space of which all of these participants in 
the process are composed, as we shall see 
presently, varied as they are. 

Here again, man, by the feats already 
accomplished—dikes for the prevention of 
floods, safety devices such as collision bulk- 
heads in vessels to prevent sinking, storm- 
proof buildings, ete.—has demonstrated that 
it is possible for him to annul the accidental 
effects of climatic disorders, in reality in 
most instances but exaggerations of natural 
physical functions. 

That, in due time, he will be able to con- 
trol them, and prevent cyclones, hurricanes, 
etc., and visually penetrate fogs, I am con- 
vinced. What he has already accomplished 


[ 144 J 





CALAMITIES NOT DUE TO GOD. 


has proven the purely physical nature of 
these phenomena, and that it is within his 
power to prevent their harmful effects. 

Once more, it is not God’s desire that any 
calamity shall befall man; He gave him 
creative power allowed to no lower animal, 
enjoining him (Genesis 1:28), with his 
mate, to 


“Be fruitful and multiply and replenish 
the earth, and subdue it.” 


10 [145 ] 


CHAPTER V. 


THE DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM 
AS THE ETHER OF MODERN 
SCIENCE. 


THE ETHER AS THE MEDIUM OUT OF 
WHICH ALL MATTER IS FORMED. 


ESTIMONY was adduced in the pre- 
ceding chapter to the effect that the 
ether of space, the “universal ether’ was 
the Divine medium of which the entire uni- 
verse was built. This interpretation is fur- 
ther sustained when the modern conception 
of the formation and structure of matter is 
analyzed—as will now be done succinctly. 
As everyone knows, a solar system such 
as our own, consists of the sun and _ its 
planets. An atom of matter, even though 
so infinitesimal that millions could cover a 
pinhead, is built much on the lines of, and 
in a measure functions much as does, a solar 
system. In lieu of the “sun” however, it 
has its “nucleus” or kernel; just as the 
nebula has its nucleus, its center of activity. 
The atomic nucleus is markedly electric for 
it is charged with positive electricity. ‘The 


[146 J 


ALL MATTER COMPOSED OF DIVINE ETHER, 


sun is likewise a highly concentrated posi- 
tive charge of electricity. 

Its particles thus charged, remind us of 
the sun in another way: they are mainly com- 
posed of the sun gas, helium. The planets 
of the solar system are represented in the 
atom by free electric particles or electrons 
which, however, are negative, and rotate in 
orbits around the nucleus. Just as is the 
case with the solar system, the sun’s attrac- 
tion for the planets is represented in the 
atom by a marked attraction of the positive 
nucleus for the negative electrons which ro- 
tate around it. 

We thus have in the atom the three 
salient features of a solar system: a glowing 
electric nucleus, representing the sun; par- 
ticles or electrons rotating around it rep- 
resenting the planets; and the attraction by 
the nucleus for these particles representing 
the attraction of the sun for its planets. A 
single atom of owygen may, in a measure, 
be said to be a minute reproduction of our 
solar system with its eight planets. 

The next feature in this connection is the 
difference in the nature of the various chemi- 
cal elements, hydrogen, oxygen, lead, etc. 


[147 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


This is very important, for it explains the 
origin and evolution of matter and also how 
its various elements are formed. 

The difference between the various atoms 
or kinds of matter is due to the variations 
in the number (not quality) of the positive 
electrons which the nucleus (minute sun) 
contains and of the negative electrons cir- 
culating, planet-like, around the nucleus. 
Thus, the lightest atom is that of hydrogen 
(the gas used frequently for balloons) be- 
cause it has but one positive electron in its 
nucleus and but one negative electron ro- 
tating around it. The next gas in point of 
lightness is heliwm, the nucleus of which con- 
tains four positive electrons and two nega- 
tive electrons, leaving two negative electrons 
free to act as “planets” around it. A 
heavier atom is that of lithtwm, which, how- 
ever, is the lightest of all metals. It has but 
three positive electrons in its nucleus and 
three negative electrons around it. This in- 
crease of positive and negative electrons in 
the atom continues forming many different 
atoms, until wraniwm, which has ninety-two 
of each electron in both its nucleus and the 
space surrounding it, is reached. 


[ 148 ] 


ALL MATTER COMPOSED OF DIVINE ETHER. 


This uranium, a heavy white metal, is par- 
ticularly interesting in two ways. It is one 
of the starting points of, so to say, a chemical 
genealogical tree, for by eliminating eight of 
the positive electrons in its nucleus and four 
in its circulating negative electrons, it be- 
comes finally, after passing through other 
stages, heliwm, thorium, etc., the familiar 
metal, lead. 

This exemplifies the manner in which a 
great number of chemical elements are con- 
tinually being formed from others. And 
yet the atoms of the different chemical ele- 
ments formed are qualitatively the same. 
It is only a matter of number and arrange- 
ment of the electrons. Each atom of any 
chemical substance is thus merely an in- 
finitesimal planetary system. Indeed, we 
may now extend our admiration of the 
grandeur and mathematical unity of the uni- 
verse and its multitude of solar systems down 
to the infinitesimal atom of matter, the 
“mighty atom” as it has been styled. 

The second remarkable property of uran- 
ium is that the instability of its atom, due 
to its great atomic weight (238.2 as com- 
pared to hydrogen 1, for instance), causes it 


[ 149 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


to throw off readily its electrons in order to 
form lighter atoms. ‘Thus, we have seen that 
by doing so, it forms lead; while the atomic 
weight of uranium is 238.2 as shown above, 
that of lead is only 207.2. 

The striking feature of the process, how- 
ever, 18 that it is when a heavy atom such 
as uranium carries on this function that it 
becomes radioactive. In 1898 Professor and 
Madam Curie found that two elements, 
uramum and radiwm (the latter of which 
they discovered and found thousands of 
times more active than uranium) possessed 
this property. This was shown by their ac- 
tion on photographic plates, an observation 
first made by the French physicist Becquerel 
in 1896 and which caused these rays to be 
known as “Becquerel’s rays.” 

If we now inquire into the identity of 
these rays, we shall again be brought to 
realize that they also tend to indicate that 
“all nature is one.” 

The “positive electrons” referred to re- 
peatedly above, and known as the alpha rays, 
are the little Goliaths of the atom, for they 
contribute nearly ninety-nine per cent. of all 
the energy radiated by it. Playing the role 


[ 150 ] 


ALL MATTER COMPOSED OF DIVINE ETHER. 

of “sun” in the atom, this is quite appropri- 
ate. They do not, however, give off light, 
but instead, large rays which travel but one- 
tenth as fast. Their antagonists are the 
negative electrons circulating about each 
“sun” as “planets.” These little negative 
particles, which constitute the beta rays of 
Becquerel, cause, when they enter the former, 
varying degrees of rapid or slow disintegra- 
tion. As a result, there are formed and 
ejected gamma rays, of very high frequency, 
the familiar Y- or Roentgen rays. Now 
these rays are known to be waves in the ether. 

Additional details are necessary to under- 
stand, as far as the present state of knowl- 
edge will permit, the genesis of radioactivity. 
Sir Oliver Lodge, in a recent review of the 
subject, wrote: “All radiation is produced 
by changing the motion of an electron. The 
electrons circulating round an atom have the 
peculiar power of dropping from one orbit 
to another, every now and then, and when 
they do so they emit energy in the form of 
radiation. The kind of radiation they emit 
depends on how far they have dropped and 
where they drop to. If they drop from a 
long way off they emit ultra-violet radiation 


[151 ] 





THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


or X-rays. If they drop only a little way, 
they emit infra-red radiations, the waves of 
which are shorter than those of visible light. 
Each drop nearer to the nucleus corresponds 
to a line in the spectrum. By analyzing the 
spectrum the structure of the atom has been 
made out. This process is a reversible one. 
Not only is radiation emitted; it can also be 
absorbed. When radiation is absorbed the 
electron is jerked up again. How far it is 
jerked up depends on the kind of radiation. 
All these details can be followed, and are 
studied, by the great spectroscopic analysts 
who are now at work.” 

Summarizing all these data it seems plain 
that the need of a primary intelligent and 
coordinative creative medium such as the 
ether asserts itself on all sides and that a very 
large number of philosophers and scientists 
of the first order have directly or indirectly 
regarded it as of Divine origin. The original 
Hebrew text states that the universe was 
created out of matter in space by a spiritual 
agency of Divine origin. The Bible (He- 
brews 11:8) states, referring to “worlds,’ 


‘Things which are seen were not made 
of things which do appear.” 


[ 152] 


ALL MATTER COMPOSED OF DIVINE ETHER. 





The ether, as interpreted by scientists, 
meets all these conditions and is the only 
medium known to science that is capable of 
doing so. It is invisible, permeates all mat- 
ter and pervades all space by wave motion, 
without limit in the universe. It offers prac- 
tically no resistance to radiant energy, even 
to light from the sun and the most distant 
stars discovered. It is the medium which 
transmits “radio” waves, wireless telegraphy 
waves, Becquerel rays, X- or Roentgen rays, 
ele 

The ether is endowed with creative power 
in space and on earth. On earth the posi- 
tive and negative electrons of atoms which 
by their number and arrangement form the 
various chemical elements, carbon, iron, io0- 
dine, phosphorus, etc., being, as the term 
“electron” denotes, electric, they are, there- 
fore, composed of ether, in virtue of Clerk 
Maxwell’s demonstrated principle that “ethe- 
real radiation is fundamentally electrical.” 
In space the same principle applies, since 
its matter, as observed spectroscopically, is 
the same as on earth. The ether of space, 
therefore, bwilds solar systems as it does 
matter, with coordination and intelligence, 


[ 153 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


and endows all chemical elements it forms 
with the properties they are known to possess. 

All this sustains the Biblical text in 
which, out of unseen things (the ether as 
shown by science) visible things are formed, 
these including, as worded in Genesis 1: 16: 

“God made two great lights; the greater 
light to rule the day and the lesser light 
to rule the night; he made the stars 
also.” 

On the whole, the data submitted, even 
though representing but a minute fraction 
of the wonderful labors devoted to the sub- 
ject by scientists, clearly show that the 
trend of modern knowledge is to sustain the 
teachings of the original Hebrew text that 
the universe (“worlds’) was created out of 
an invisible medium of Divine origin as 
indicated by its coordinative intelligence, and 
its stupendous and irresistible interdepend- 
ence. 

All this finally leads us to a unification 
almost overwhelming in its bearing upon 
religious thought. Electricity is not the only 
source of ethereal radiations, but, as Faraday 
and Maxwell have pointed out, this applies 
also to light and magnetism, while Einstein’s 


[ 154] 


ALL MATTER COMPOSED OF DIVINE ETHER. 


labors tend to suggest that, as held by New- 
ton, it applies also to gravitation. 

No progressive scientist denies this unifi- 
cation of energies today. In the light of the 
conclusion and data submitted above, this 
means that it is the intelligent spiritual 
medium, the ether, an immanence of God, 
bestowed by Him upon all nature, which car- 
ries on all its functions. Therefore, all 
Nature is One. 

Atheists have invented various purely phy- 
sical terms to replace that of God in this 
limitless cosmic process, but they overlook 
the fact that coordinative forethought and 
design and many other evidences of the work- 
ings of a tremendous intellect on all sides 
in nature are not met or explained by any 
purely physical device or term. 

Once more are we brought to realize that 
science confirms the intuitive deductions of 
both ancient and modern philosophers as 
well as the Mosaic doctrine itself, which in- 
cludes the existence of an intelligent breath 
(wind, in the Hebrew text) as a factor of 
the material “light.” 


“By His Spirit he hath garnished the 
heavens.” (Job 26:13.) 


[155 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


This material “light”? became the impond- 
erable element of the Greek philosophers, 
Heraclitus, Pythagoras and others—“the 
great soul of the universe.” In the sixteenth 
century Paracelsus urged its recognition as 
the occult agent through which chemical 
changes observed by him were produced. 
The more modern physicists then recognized 
that the transmission of light through space 
betokened the presence therein of a vibrating 
imponderable element, the ether. Newton, 
“who had spent his whole life in the study of 
the heavenly bodies, went further,” writes 
Schuré,! “‘he terms this ether the sensoriwm 
Dei or God’s brain, that is to say, the organ 
through which the Divine thought acts upon 
the infinitely great as well as upon the 
infinitely small.” 


“For by Him were all things created 
that are in heaven and that are in earth, 
visible and invisible.” (Colossians 1: 16.) 


1 Schuré: “Les Grand Initiés,’ Paris, 1924, p. 293. 


[ 156 ] 


DIVINE ETHER IN CREATION OF MANKIND. 


THE ETHER AS THE ACTIVE AGENT IN 
THE GENESIS OF MANKIND. 


The purely physical nature of the human 
body, even though a “temple of the Living 
God,” was indicated by considerable evidence, 
both Biblical and scientific, submitted in the 
second chapter. That life itself is but a 
series of continuous chemical reactions in a 
complex aggregate of different elements, 
protoplasm, is also demonstrable by many 
facts, a few of which can only be submitted 
here. 

A. frog’s heart, detached from the animal 
and left several days on ice, or allowed to 
dry to a crisp in the sun, may be made to 
beat again simply by placing it in a certain 
chemical solution. In fact, the heart may be 
cut into many small pieces—evidently a dead 
heart then; but it is not dead, for on placing 
the small fragments in the same solution, 
each little piece will soon beat actively. 
Human tissues under similar conditions be- 
have in the same way. 

Whole animalcules may be completely 
dried by the sun, being shrunk to the condi- 
tion of a dust particle. A drop of rain water 


[157 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


on such a particle, however, will soon cause 
it to spread out and resume its normal living 
state. An example of this phenomenon is 
afforded by a tardigrade, a mite-like animal- 
cule provided with four stumpy legs and 
feet supplied with claws, and with a com- 
plex set of internal organs and a nervous 
system. Rotifers are familiar animalcules of 
this class. The dust of eaves-troughs may 
contain many such; scraped off and moist- 
ened, then spread upon a slide and examined 
under the microscope, they will eventually be 
seen to resume their normal activity, as shown 
on the opposite page. If now, however, the 
moisture is allowed to evaporate, all move- 
ments of the rotifer cease and it resumes its 
dust-like state. 

As is well known, grains of wheat found 
in the graves and buried with Egyptian 
mummies thousands of years have been said 
to sprout and bloom when planted. While 
this is not true, the fact remains that plant 
seeds of various kinds have been found to 
retain their power of sprouting as much as 
two centuries if kept dry in the meantime. 

The remarkable labors of Dr. Alexis 
Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute, New 


[ 158 ] 


DIVINE ETHER IN CREATION OF MANKIND. 





York, also indicate that life and even tissue 
growth are the result of chemical reactions 
in which an external agency such as “life” 





DUST PARTICLES RESTORED TO LIFE BY 
MOISTURE. (Verwory.) 


a, A creeping tardigrade; b, The same as dust particle. 


or “vital force” plays no role. He found that 
detached fragments of animal tissue not only 
continued to live in blood plasma (the fluid 
portion of the blood), but that they actually 
grew therein, the living state and growth 


[159 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


continuing indefinitely as long as the serum 
was furnished under appropriate conditions. 
Chick embryo tissues, moreover, were found 
to grow abundantly not only in chicken 
plasma, but also, though not quite so well, in 
plasma from dogs; rabbits and human be- 
ings. This illustrates anew the physical 
similarity, chemical in this connection, be- 
tween man and the lower animals. 

These extraordinary phenomena find their 
explanation in the data submitted in the 
foregoing chapter. ach tissue cell is but 
an aggregate of chemical elements, but so 
numerous that their identity has only been 
determined in part. These are, in the main: 
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, 
phosphorus, potassium, calcium, sodium, chlo- 
rine, iron, manganese and magnesium—all 
found in abundance in nature as inert com- 
ponents of non-living or inorganic matter. 
No one of them is peculiar to the living 
state. They jointly constitute the extremely 
complex substance known as_ protoplasm 
which, when living and observed under the 
microscope, appears as a viscid or colloid 
granular fluid. This “protoplasm” carries 
on body functions, nutrition, secretion, 


[ 160 ] 


DIVINE ETHER IN CREATION OF MANKIND. 


growth, motion, etc., forming part, as it 
does, of all tissues of plants and animals, in- 
cluding man. 

We thus have in this aggregate of atoms 
of which living protoplasm is the resultant, 
another example of the oneness of nature, 
since it takes us back through these elements 
and atoms to the universal ether. The atoms 
must, in fact, originally have been formed 
in the nebula of our solar system or perhaps 
during the formative stage of our planet, 
for the spectroscope indicates, we have seen, 
the presence of many of them in correspond- 
ing heavenly bodies. As regards the primi- 
tive protoplasmic or living cells, however, 
they could only have been built up out of 
these atoms, or aggregates of them, building 
elements many millions of years after the 
formation of the earth had begun, when it 
had shrunk to approximately its present size 
by condensation, and when its intrinsic tem- 
perature had been sufficiently reduced to 
render its surface suitable for living things. 
This included many factors, physical and 
chemical, such, for instance, as plants for 
food, respiratory gases, etc., capable of per- 
petuating life and reproduction. 


11 [ 161 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


Professor Osborn,! of Columbia University, 
is of the opinion, based upon the application 
of uniformitarian evolutionary principles, 
“that when life appeared on the earth some 
energies pre-existing in the cosmos were 
brought into relation with the chemical ele- 
ments already existing. In other words, 
since every advance thus far in the quest as 
to the nature of life has been in the direc- 
tion of a physicochemical rather than of a 
vitalistic explanation, from the time when 
Lavoisier (1743-1794) put the life of plants 
on a solar-chemical basis, if we logically fol- 
low the same direction we arrive at the be- 
lief that the last step into the unknown— 
one which possibly may never be taken by 
man—will also be physicochemical in all its 
measurable and observable properties, and 
that the origin of life, as well as its de- 
velopment, will ultimately prove to be a 
true evolution within the pre-existing 
cosmos.” 

The original, primordial cell or cells which 
eventually, by suitable aggregation, myriads 
in number, were to constitute man, first ap- 


1H. F. Osborn: “The Origin and Evolution of Life,” Lon- 
don, 1918, p. 2. 


[ 162 ] 


DIVINE ETHER IN CREATION OF MANKIND. 


peared when, after several hundred million 
years of evolution from the nebula, the earth 
had become suitable for life. This includes 
a layer of gases capable of sustaining respira- 
tion (the atmosphere) and a dense fog-like 
blanket (the hydrosphere), to protect it from 
excessive solar irradiation and desiccation. 
Ever renewed, over the planetary dry soil, 
this hydrosphere served eventually to form 
lakes, rivers and seas. 

The concordance of this course of events 
with Genesis (1:9, 10) is striking when we 
realize that the Hebrew text was written 
many centuries before the Christian era: 


“God said, Let the waters under the 
heaven be gathered together unto one 
place, and let the dry land appear.” 

“And God called the dry land earth 
and the gathering together of the waters 
called he seas.” 


It is in these waters that the origin of 
protoplasm and the simplest examples of 
life occurred (the Archeozoic era of geolo- 
gists), followed later (Cambrian period) by 
lowly marine organisms of the trilobite type. 
Then appeared (Ordovician period) the first 
known fresh-water fishes. 


[ 163 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


Here, again, there is concordance with the 
Biblical text (Genesis 1:20) but only when 
corrected : 

“God said: Let the waters bring forth 
abundantly the moving creature that 
hath life.” 

The Hebrew text is incomplete here, how- 
ever, for according to Professor Fagnani, 
it “adds teeming things.” This portrays the 
true sense of scientific teachings, which all 
indicate that germinal or primary cells were 
at first produced in great quantities, a multi- 
tude of different groups constituting the 
initial cells of as many plants and animals, 
“each after its kind,” as is repeatedly stated 
in the Biblical text. 

The origin of animals from the primordial 
seas is afforded an interesting confirmation 
by various familiar facts in medical prac- 
tice. Not only does the human body con- 
tain many relics of its primitive aquatic ex- 
istence such as embryonic branchial or gill 
clefts, but the blood plasma (the fluid por- 
tion of the blood) of the entire body con- 
tains the same main salts and other chemical 
substances that are found in pure sea water 
though in weaker solution. The “salty 


[ 164 ] 


DIVINE ETHER IN CREATION OF MANKIND. 
tears,” sweat and other body fluids are par- 
ticularly rich in the main salt of sea water, 
sodium chloride. The craving for it by ani- 
mals and its use by man as a condiment, 
“table-salt,” betoken its physiological im- 
portance to the animal cell. 

In many disorders, particularly those due 
to considerable loss of blood, saline solution, 
water containing the proportion of salt found 
in the blood serum or plasma, and known 
in Kurope as “artificial serum,” is used ex- 
tensively as a remedial agent. 

In exsanguinated frogs, saline solution in- 
jected into their large blood-vessels will sus- 
tain life pending the formation of new blood. 
Sterilized sea-water injections, properly di- 
luted, have also been used by Quinton and 
others in many acute and chronic disorders, 
with marked benefit. Briefly, all the cells 
out of which our body is built are essentially 
marine cells living in their original medium, 
dilute sea water. — 

During a prolonged period, the Paleozoic 
era, marine fishes dominated the scene, but 
reptiles and insects, as shown in coal strata 
or layers, began to appear. The next era, 
as revealed by findings in the next higher 


[165 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


geological levels, the Mesozoic, is that of rep- 
tile dominance with great lizard-shaped fly- 
ing monsters of the dinosaur type, armed 
with teeth larger than those of any present- 
day mammal and whose bipedal footprints, 
showing the marks of sharply-curved grasp- 
ing talons, have been found in many regions. 

Here, again, the Biblical text finds it- 
self confirmed, for the dinosaur belongs to 
a reptilian stock which originated birds of 
all kinds. Hence the terminal phrase of 
the previously quoted Genesis 1:21, that 
God also created 


“Every winged fowl after his kind.” 


The next era, the Cenozoic, is one of 
major importance to mankind for, as _ its 
name implies, it constitutes the age of mam- 
mal dominance, during which the higher 
primates, which include the apes and man, 
began to appear. ‘The presence of fossils 
of mammalians of various kinds in different 
parts of the world, coincident with the 
dinosaurs and other powerfully armed and 
mighty beasts, has suggested that during a 
prolonged period the earlier mammalians 
were destroyed in great numbers by these 


[ 166 ] 


DIVINE ETHER IN CREATION OF MANKIND. 


great beasts of prey. At any rate, it is 
only when the latter were virtually extinct 
that they began to develop. 

There first appeared then a series known 
as the “archaic” mammals, or semi-primitives, 
both herbivorous and carnivorous, ranging 
from light-limbed hoofed animals to clumsy, 
massive limbed beasts recalling somewhat 
the rhinoceros or elephant of our period. 
Their skull capacity, however, vouchsafed 
very limited brain power. ‘The rapid in- 
crease of better organized or modernized 
mammals eventually caused them to migrate 
to less propitious climates, and their career 
closed in the early part of the Cenozoic era. 
In the meantime, a great variety of animals 
of all sorts developed in various parts of 
the world. 

Concordance with the Biblical text is once 
more noticeable here. ‘Thus, as stated in 
Genesis 1: 24: 

“And God said: Let the earth bring 
forth the living creature after his kind, 


cattle and creeping thing, and beast of 
the earth after his kind.” 


The first men, more like animals, human- 
oids, appeared about one million two hundred 


[ 167 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


thousand years ago, according to Keith, but 
as Professor R. S. Lull,! of Yale, states, 
“with apparent insufficiency of evidence, 
judgment as to the antiquity of man should 
be for the present withheld.” 

We have seen that the Darwinian theory 
of evolution is no longer supported by the 
scientific world, and that, as stated by Pro- 
fessor Osborn, the ascent of man from the 
ape—the so-called monkey—is merely a 
myth. Another evolution theory is gaining 
ground, however, that of Lamarck, who is 
the real father of the modern evolution 
ideas, as long held by Professor Cope of the 
University of Pennsylvaniaa He was a 
French nobleman (J. B. de M. Lamarck) 
born in 1744, whose labors, based on the work 
of anatomists and naturalists supplemented 
by personal investigations, were overshadowed 
by those of Darwin. 

Lamarck recognized God as the Creator of 
all things. In so far as the creation of liv- 
ing things was concerned, however, he held, 
as previously stated, that the Divine fiat or 
spark was limited to the initial or smallest 


1R. S. Lull: “The Evolution of Man,’ New Haven, Conn., 
1923, p. 37. 


[ 168 ] 


DIVINE ETHER IN CREATION OF MANKIND. 





animal forms, and that it endowed them with 
the power of developing thereafter automat- 
ically, but under the influence of environ- 
ment. This innate power to develop, 2.e., to 
undergo evolution, he attributed to a subtle 
but undetermined mediwm which he regarded 
as life. This life medium was capable, in 
his opinion, of causing the increase in size 
and form of the body as long as required. 
In lowly animals, the production or repro- 
duction of an organ could result from the 
need of that organ. In general, the develop- 
ment or power of an organ corresponded 
with the use of that organ. All that was 
thus gained or changed in the body during 
the life of an individual was preserved for 
the following generation and transmitted to 
the offspring. Many data are available in 
support of Lamarck’s views, but their enum- 
eration would exceed the limits and aims of 
this book. 

The interpretation I have submitted rep- 
resents a development of Lamarck’s funda- 
mental idea, but amplified through the light 
thrown upon the evolution problem by re- 
cent scientific researches, those reviewed in 
outline in the foregoing chapters. God also 


[ 169 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


here is the Creator, but through His own 
spiritualized medium, the subtle and im- 
ponderable ether, which is now the object of 
intensive research on all sides. Instead, how- 
ever, of merely initiating life, as Lamarck 
believed, it also sustains the life process it- 
self and evolution in all animals, including 
man. This is due to the fact that, being the 
chemical foundation of all atoms in matter, 
and the living body being but a complex ag- 
gregate of atoms, all living organs are 
structurally but aggregates of ether. Briefly, 
God's medium, the ether, builds all matter, 
including living things. Hence, the physical 
side of human evolution is a property of 
the wniversal ether. 

On the whole, the trend of science is to 
sustain and confirm Biblical teachings con- 
cerning the development of man as given 
succinctly in Genesis, thus illustrating anew 
the active role of scientific research in the 
evolution of religious thought. 


‘“SAll things were made by Him, and 
without Him was not any thing made that 
was made.” (John 1:3.) 


[170 ] 


DIVINE ETHER AS SOURCE OF ANIMAL MIND. 


THE ETHER AS THE SOURCE OF INTELLIGENCE 
IN ALL ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 


Stress was laid in the fourth chapter on the 
origin from God, as an inherent property 
of the universal ether, of the intelligence in 
all matter. Its powers were shown to be 
creative, coordinative and eminently discrim- 
inative, even though properties of the lowly 
“clay” or “dust of the ground.” This brings 
animal intelligence, including that of the 
physical body of man, within the domain 
Otetnesctner. 

The manifestations of intelligence of 
which the ether is capable in the higher or- 
ganisms, both in plants and in animals, be- 
token clearly not only the workings of a 
creative mind but also the landmarks of pre- 
conceived precautions for the welfare of each 
living thing. Thus, the great French phy- 
siologist, Claude Bernard, wrote that “in 
the vital fabric is traced the ideal design 
of an organization still invisible to us, but 
which has beforehand assigned to each part 
and each element its structure and its prop- 
erties.” Even the lower forms of animal 
life are provided for; as stated by the Eng- 


[171] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


lish naturalist Jonathan Franklin: “A spark 
of the entire creation glows even in the 
smallest of creatures; the less a living animal 
seems able to think, owing to the inferiority 
of its organs, the more, judging by the acts 
of wisdom of which it is capable, does it be- 
come evident that some One has thought for 
iW 

Plant life is also endowed with physical 
intelligence. As Dr. Luther Burbank,! to 
whom we owe much sound knowledge, says: 
“Plants make experiments which succeed or 
fail. They try different ways of meeting 
their environment. From these attempts 
there may develop, in the long run, basic as 
well as superficial variations, changes that 
react upon the germ plasm. The plants 
form habits which aid to fix the type. Hop 
vines will curl in one direction about a sup- 
port and no human power can cause them 
willingly to turn another way. The sensitive 
plant is a special case of what I call ‘sub- 
conscious heredity.’ I have often amused 
friends,” continues Dr. Burbank, “by sud- 
denly removing the glass covers of sensitive 


1[uther Burbank: New York Times Magazine, August 30, 
1925. 


[172] 


DIVINE ETHER AS SOURCE OF ANIMAL MIND, 


plants in my gardens. The moment the 
covers are lifted the plants will sink to the 
ground. They will wait quietly, as if to see 
what will happen, for about six minutes. 
Then they will cautiously straighten up 
again. But repeat the experiment of remov- 
ing the covers too many times and at last 
the plant will ignore you.” 

Evidences of physical intelligence are 
clearly discernible even at the lowest rung of 
the animal ladder, the primitive one-celled 
amzba, composed entirely of protoplasm. 
Not only will it hide itself behind some 
opaque substance, a leaf, plant stem, etc., 
when a larger animalcule, a water louse, for 
instance, capable of devouring it, happens 
around, but it is capable of carrying on 
complex réles. In our blood and that of 
lower animals a similar cell becomes an 
active participant in the defensive functions 
against disease and also a scavenger to rid 
the blood of detritus and other useless but 
harmful agencies. ‘These are ingested by the 
cell and digested by means of enzymes, 
trypsin, and other substances similar to those 
in our own digestive tract. 

In diseases due to germs, these same cells, 


[173 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 





known as “phagocytes,” remind one, espe- 
cially if the infection is localized, of trained 
troops in action. ‘They surround the enemy 
and “infiltrate” their lines if possible. ‘They 
then gorge themselves with the disease germs 
present, a multitude of phagocytes dying on 
the field, the aggregate of their “bodies” 
forming the familiar “pus.” The bacteria 
even in these dead cells are not all killed by 
the digestive process, however; hence the 
danger of pricking or cutting one’s finger 
or allowing pus to penetrate the skin during 
an operation. Infection of the surgeon’s 
hand may then occur and general septic in- 
fection follow. 

It is evident that animal intelligence be- 
gins at the very start of life and that it owes 
this cardinal function to its highly specific 
and complex chemical structure, but, prim- 
arily, to the ether out of which all tissues 
are formed. 

It is often stated that mind is the product 
of the brain, but it is obvious that this does 
not apply to the amebic cell we have re- 
viewed, for it has no brain or nervous system. 
We have witnessed signs of intelligence in 
plants and many organisms totally devoid 


[174 ] 


DIVINE ETHER AS SOURCE OF ANIMAL MIND. 
of brain cells. It is, in fact, a property 
of all matter and of all organisms. In view 
of Clerk Maxwell’s oft verified principle 
that radiations in the ether are fundamentally 
electric, we are brought back once more to 
the conclusion that ether is the fundamental 
source of animal intelligence. Such being 
the case, and the dynamics of the ether being, 
as we have seen, electric, animal or physical 
intelligence 1s a manifestation of electric 
energy. 

Though functionally quite automatic, we 
have seen, the physical mind of the universe 
is capable of manifestations so stupendous 
that even the phenomenal developments of 
science during the last fifty years, including 
the newer knowledge concerning the rela- 
tions between the ether and creation of all 
that is, have but served as clues to wonders 
to come. 

Is it the animal mind which has visualized 
these possibilities? We have seen, in the 
third chapter, striking limitations of animal 
mind in the lower animals: the highest ana- 
tomically and physically developed animal, 
the ape, has not advanced beyond what he 
was a million years ago. Like a horse, a 


[175 ] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


dog and a flea even, am ape may be trained 
with much patience to do a few tricks, 
sometimes surprising in their imitativeness. 
But this is not of its creation. It is man 
again, his trainer, that he imitates—some- 
thing that he has seen a human being do. 
Animals are imitative, not ingenious. Oc- 
casionally the accidental discovery that up- 
setting a milk-can will prove profitable, or 
that pushing a latch will open a door, etc., 
may appear wonderful, but that is not due to 
a previous study of the relations between 
cause and effect. Again, instinct in all ani- 
mals evokes at times some surprising per- 
formances. But as long as the memory of 
man can recall, the same animals, the same 
plant, the same crystal, the same molecule 
and the same atom have always done the 
same thing automatically under exactly the 
same circumstances. 

Why the enormous gap between all ani- 
mals in this respect and man? Is the brain 
its underlying cause, since this organ in- 
creases gradually in size as each animal grows 
in importance until man is reached? Such 
cannot be the case, for the mental distance 
between the ape and man is such as to pre- 


[176 ] 


DIVINE ETHER AS SOURCE OF ANIMAL MIND. 





clude any comparison. ‘The superiority of 
the human mind over that of all other ani- 
mals has not been accounted for by science 
otherwise than by a greater brain develop- 
ment. Were this true, some animal on earth 
would surely approach man in intelligence, 
and a scale of mental power would exist be- 
low him representing a gradual decline until 
the lowest forms were reached. But the 
gap between man’s mental attributes and 
those of the animals nearest to him is such, 
while the scale of variations between animals 
is so insignificant in comparison, that science 
is undoubtedly wrong in this instance. 

Any effort to ascertain the cause of this 
phenomenon imposes at once the need of 
knowledge concerning the manner in which 
a nerve impulse to a muscle, for instance, is 
produced. A multitude of theories have been 
vouchsafed, but the only one which has been 
sustained experimentally so far is one sug- 
gested by myself in 1903.1 My researches 
showed that what are now known as “axis 
cylinders” and “fibrils” (see various a’s in 
the annexed plate) were capillaries in which 


1C, E. deM. Sajous: “The Internal Secretions and the 
Principles of Medicine,’ Phila., 1922, 10th Ed., vol. ii, p. 952. 


12 [177] 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


blood plasma containing “adrenowidase,’ a 
substance which supplies oxygen to the 
dynamo, so to say, of the organ or cell body 
(Fig. 1, 4). The oxygen liberates heat 
while passing through and reacting a fatlike 
substance (the black areas in Fig. 2, b) rich 
in phosphorus, termed lecithin, whose heat 
production when oxidized is controlled by an- 
other substance merged with it, cholesterin, 
or more correctly cholesterol, since it is a 
monatomic alcohol, to prevent undue heat 
liberation. The cell body (Fig. 1) as the 
“dynamo” of the organ, sends its impulses 
through the nerve proper (ccc Fig. 1) to, 
for example, the fragment of muscle shown 
in Fig. 3. 

The main active organs in the process are 
those which, we have seen when the rib 
problem was analyzed, played the leading 
role in abnormal growth and sex changes in 
children, through their excessive stimulation 
of all tissues. The brain and nerves receive 
precisely the substances secreted by the ad- 
renals. These substances (adrenoxin, lecithin 
and cholesterol) have not only been found 
in the brain and all nerves, but the latter 
have been found to undergo metabolism with 


[178 ] 









(Sasous.) 


A NERVE CELL AS AN ORGAN. 


(Deseribed in the text.) 





DIVINE ETHER AS SOURCE OF ANIMAL MIND. 


a rise of temperature and excretion of carbon 
dioxide—the typical life process in all tissue. 

As Professor Howell, of Johns Hopkins 
states, referring to various data he cites: 
“These facts warrant the belief that in the 
normal activity of the nerve chemical changes 
of some kind take place; and another fact 
which points in the same direction is the 
high temperature coefficient exhibited by 
the nerve. The evidence furnished (neces- 
sity of oxygen and formation of carbon di- 
oxide) indicates a reaction of oxidation.” 
This process is precisely what my own inves- 
tigations have explained. 

As shown in the annexed illustration, I 
regard each nerve cell as an organ having 
its own circulation and supplied with func- 
tional biochemical agents similar to those 
in all other tissues, not only in the human 
family but in all other animals. 

A notable feature in this connection is 
that we have in the cell of a neuron, as 
shown in Fig. 1, another instance of the 
general plan of nature discernible every- 
where. ‘The solar system which we found 
reproduced in the atom, in the tissue cell, 


1 Howell: “Text Book of Physiology, 8th Ed., 1923, p. 119. 
[ 179 | 


THE ETHER A DIVINE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM. 


etc., is also clearly pictured in Fig. 1, the 
nucleus in its center being a replica of the 
sun, whence radiates central power. ‘The 
solar orb does so through the ether of space, 
one of the manifestations of which we have 
seen, is electric energy. A nerve, though it- 
self a builder of nervous energy, is at the 
same time a conductor of a great aggregate 
of this energy liberated in the star-like cell 
body (Fig. 1) which gives it off. 

The cell body, therefore, is itself a factory 
and storage battery of nervous energy. Just 
as all manifestations traceable back to the 
ether are like it, electric, so is the whole 
nerve cell, the neuron as it is called in medi- 
cal parlance, electric. A current of electric- 
ity applied to it, in fact, will raise its func- 
tional activity in proportion as the strength 
of the current used is great, and cause in the 
nerve, measurable fatigue and chemical phe- 
nomena clearly denoting active work. 

When we recall that the brain contains 
millions of these minute storage-cells, for a 
nerve cell can only be seen through a micro- 
scope, it is not difficult to understand that 
the brain is a great storehouse of electric 
energy which owes its mental powers to the 


[ 180 ] 


DIVINE ETHER AS SOURCE OF ANIMAL MIND. 


intelligence inherent in the ether out of 
which its chemical constituents are built. 

A paramount feature of this conclusion, 
however, is that it refers only to the mental 
functions of the organ as the animal brain, 
in contradistinction to the same functions 
observed in plants and which are a property 
of their protoplasm. Man, like all other ani- 
mals, possesses such a brain, which is the 
source of the animal instincts, good and bad, 
previously described. But man alone, we 
have seen, is capable of incomparably greater 
mental creations than the highest of all 
other animals. His brain, therefore, is en- 
dowed with functions other than those of the 
latter. As I have submitted in the third 
chapter his higher intellect is due to his 
Divine Spirit. 

As John Fiske! so well said: 

“Whereas in its rude beginnings the 
psychical life was but an appendage to 
the body, in fully-developed Humanity, 
the body is the vehicle for the soul.” 


1 John Fiske: “The Destiny of Man,” 1895, London, p. 65. 


[181 ] 


CHAPTER VI. 


SCIENCE CONFIRMS THE SOUNDNESS 
OF RELIGION. 


SCIENCE REMOVES THE CAUSES OF DISCORD 
IN CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 


HE present is one of the fateful hours 
in the world’s history,’ wrote the Rev. 
Dr. S. Z. Batten, of Washington, D.C., in a 
vigorous monograph. “There are those who 
say that Christianity faces the greatest 
crisis and supremest challenge of its own 
historyi-9. =) se aVihate richtehavemsrae 
churches, in view of the world situation,” 
according to this writer, “to claim the Chris- 
tian name? The churches stand arraigned 
at the bar of public opinion and it is perfectly 
fatuous for churchmen to resent these ques- 
tions or to avoid the issue.”’ Hence the title 
of his monograph: “Why not try Chris- 
tianity ?”’ 
Since Dr. Batten’s paper was written the 
Scopes trial, with Mr. Bryan’s involuntary 
exposure of the vulnerability of the funda- 


[ 182 ] 


SCIENCE REMOVES CAUSES OF DISCORD. 


mental teachings of the Bible to ridicule, has 
occurred. Genesis being that portion of 
Scriptures which deals directly with God, 
it is self-evident that with the Divine Self 
so weakened as a factor of the whole religious 
edifice, Christianity, based on the Divinity 
of the Son of God could but suffer griev- 
ously. The literalists are undoubtedly per- 
petuating this destructive process, and, by 
their well meant but ill-advised attitude and 
efforts, based mainly on Mr. Bryan’s un- 
fortunate disregard of scientific testimony, 
are slowly but steadily undermining religious 
thought as a whole. ‘They will eventually 
destroy its influence in this country, unless, 
realizing that they are on a wrong course, 
they adopt one in keeping with their true 
aims and hopes and, in all details, based on 
the solid rock of truth. 

Indeed, no one could doubt that Chris- 
tianity is standing trial now, but it is as 
plain that, incoordinated and disjointed as 
is its defence, the situation is being aggra- 
vated from day to day. A safer plan un- 
doubtedly would be to ascertain the nature 
of its causative factors, and if possible, to 
eliminate them. Experience has shown that 


[ 183 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION, 


this course affords the best and promptest 
results in the treatment of disease. It should 
be the best to adopt even where religion is 
the sufferer. 

Unfortunately, as shown in the foregoing 
chapters, we are dealing with a family of 
diseases, so to say, as different and discon- 
nected as they could possibly be, even though 
affecting a single organism, that of religion 
as a whole. Semitic philology and some 
twenty branches of science being factors of 
the problem, the remedial measures them- 
selves assume complexity. Hence the need 
of a summary of the various factors of the 
case as a whole, previously analyzed in this 
book. 

Defective Translation of Genesis —This 
has been the source of literally destructive 
confusion. The errors or misinterpretations 
were not only numerous, but they seemed in- 
variably to modify the sense of fundamental 
questions. The translators could not with 
any degree of justice be blamed for them; 
ancient Hebrew did not possess a rich vocab- 
ulary and the guide in the choice of words 
was mainly what to the Hebrew scholars 
who did the work appeared most plausible. 


[ 184 ] 


SCIENCE REMOVES CAUSES OF DISCORD. 





Defective Interpretation of Evolution. 
This is another source of serious harm. 
Doubtless the Darwin theory as construed 
by this distinguished naturalist, and partic- 
ularly the “monkey origin” of man, tended 
to foster atheism and did so particularly 
during the last two decades of the last 
century. But why should literalists per- 
petuate these theories after they had _ lost 
their hold upon scientists in general? Why 
set aside all the work done by these scientists 
on the subject during the last twenty-five 
years? 

Erroneous Assumption of Physical Like- 
ness to God. Interpretation of the verse 
(Genesis 1:26) “let us make man in our 
image,” to the effect that man’s body is 
meant as the object of resemblance to the 
Godhead is not only repellant, reminding one 
of the quaint Biblical expression that a man 
who believes such a thing of himself is 
“vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind” 
(Colossians 2:18), but is also directly crit- 
icized in the Biblical text itself. It is, in 
fact, one of the most mischievous misinterpre- 
tations of religious teachings of the series, 
because it conceals the fundamental principle 


[185 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


upon which sound belief can rest, viz., the 
existence of a spirit in man quite independent 
of the physical body which, as emphasized 
repeatedly in the Bible, is purely physical, 
having been “formed of the dust of the 
ground.” We have seen that man alone is 
endowed with such a Divine Spirit. 

How do these fundamental errors modify 
the present interpretation of Genesis? We 
shall now see that the solidity of Biblical 
teachings has not been in the least weakened 
by science, but fully sustained, despite the 
thirty-five centuries which have elapsed since 
Genesis was originally compiled or written 
by Moses. 

Another, and in many respects the para- 
mount fact, is that to deny the existence of 
God in the face of the data submitted, be- 
comes not only difficult but unjustifiable, 
since it imposes the necessity of accepting 
another agency capable of accomplishing 
what, without straining logical reasoning in 
the least, verifies the faith in the existence of 
and the omnipotent powers attributed to God 
by believers in Him. 

The title of the analytic study submitted 
below, “religio-scientific concordance,” will 


[ 186 ] 


SCIENCE REMOVES CAUSES OF DISCORD. 


perhaps appear novel, since so much has been 
done to perpetuate discord between religion 
and science. It is hoped, however, that it 
will inaugurate an era of harmony which, if 
truth prevails, must surely endure. 
RELIGIO-SCIENTIFIC CONCORDANCE. The 
quotations from the text will be limited to the 
necessary matter, such refrains as “and God 
saw that it was good,” “it was so,” etc., be- 
ing omitted as unnecessary. Each verse 
will be analyzed in sequence, followed by the 
proof in each instance which science offers. 


Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth.” 


The Hebrew word bara for “create” means 
the presence of some substance out of which 
something is formed or fashioned. Hence 
such a substance was already present in 
space when the heaven and the earth were 
created. ScrENcE: The substance in space is 
the ether of space or cosmic ether. 

The “heaven” in Hebrew is either galgal 
“a rolling cloud” or the “heavens” shamayim 
“heaped up things” and, therefore, water. 
The term “ether” being of course unknown, 
“waters” was used instead by the prophet. 


[ 187 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


SCIENCE: The constituents of water, hydro- 
gen and oxygen, are, like all matter, com- 
posed of ether electrons. 

The “earth,” in Hebrew, arga, means the 
created earth. ScrencE: All matter in space, 
including our solar system and our earth and 
its satellites, is composed of ether electrons. 

In accord with the Biblical text, there- 
fore, science has found that a fundamental 
substance existed in space and that all its 
bodies including our earth were composed of 
this universal substance, represented in He- 
brew by “waters,” owing to the clouds, rain, 
ete., from above. 


Genesis 1:2: “The earth was without 

form and void, and darkness was upon 

the face of the deep. And the Spirit of 

God moved upon the face of the waters.” 
The first part of the verse serves to in- 
dicate the non-existence of the earth in the 
primeval deep and that, in contrast to what 
was to follow, darkness prevailed. ScreNncz: 
There was a time when the earth did not 
exist and, our planet being a part of our 
solar system and formed with it, darkness 
prevailed in space where the solar system 

with its planets was to develop. 


[ 188 ] 


SCIENCE REMOVES CAUSES OF DISCORD. 


The Spirit of God in the present connec- 
tion is in Hebrew rouach, which means 
“wind,” thus denoting that an effulgence 
of Divine energy is the active medium in 
space. ScreNcE: The ether of space is a 
fundamental mediwm the dynamic powers of 
which are inconceivable. Electricity, radio- 
activity, heat and light, and the formation 
of all matter, and other properties point to 
it as the universal source of energy. 

The “waters” here, in Hebrew raveh, re- 
ferred to as being acted upon by the Divine 
Spirit, indicate the presence of some sub- 
stance replete with, or full of, resources. 
ScIENCE: The ether of space, as shown above, 
is the most prolific medium in varied re- 
sources of any known as regards the funda- 
mental functions of the wniverse. 

Genesis 1:3 and 4: “God said, Let there 
be light . . . . and God divided light 
from darkness.” 

These verses are self-explanatory. SCIENCE: 
The appearance of light corresponded with 
the formation of the nebula, the vast cloud of 
radiant gas which ultimately became our solar 
system. The glowing area was contrasted 
with the darkness of space surrounding tt. 


[ 189 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


Genesis 1:5: “God called the light day 
and the darkness he called night. And 
the evening and the morning were the 
first day.” 

The word “day” here and its recurrence is, 
according to Professor Fagnani, “simply a 
literary device to separate the works of crea- 
tion into six parts.” SCIENCE: Its trwe mean- 
ing has long been accepted as “period,” 
which denotes the accomplished formation 
of the nebula. This explanation applies also 
to the remaining five days, i.e., periods, and 
will not, therefore, be repeated. 


Genesis 1:6: “God said: Let there be 
a firmament in the midst of the waters 
and let it divide the waters from the 
waters.” %. “God divided the waters 
which were under the firmament from the 
waters which were above the firmament,” 
and 8. “called the firmament Heaven.” 

The same Hebrew scholar quoted above, 
Professor Fagnani, translates the original 
text into “let there be a vault.” God hay- 
ing “made the vault and separated the waters 
which were under the vault from those which 
were above it,’ He “called the vault Heaven.” 
The “waters” meaning the ether of space, 
we have seen, these verses tend to indicate 


[ 190 ] 


SCIENCE REMOVES CAUSES OF DISCORD. 


that “Heaven” surrounds the earth and that 
it is independent of the ether of space. 
ScreENCE: The subject does not belong to the 
field of physical science. 


Genesis 1:9: **God said: Let the waters 
under the heaven be gathered together 
unto one place, and let the dry land ap- 
pear,” and 10. He “called the dry land 
earth and the gathering together of the 
waters called He seas.” 


The development of the earth and its seas 
follows here the logical sequence after that of 
the nebula. ScreNcE: This corresponds with 
the sequence of events taught in cosmogony. 
Of special interest here is, with waters mean- 
ing the ether as a mediwm full to repletion 
(Hebrew raveh) of divers powers, that the 
waters are said to be “gathered into one 
place’ to form the earth. This corresponds 
with the nebular offshoot which, by gather- 
ing into one area in space, gradually forms 
the dry land. This applies likewise to the 
ether condensed to form the seas. 

Genesis 1:11: “God said: Let the earth 
bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, 
and the fruit tree yielded fruit after his 


kind, whose seed was in itself.” 12. “The 
earth brought forth grass, and herb yield- 


[191 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


ing seed after his kind, and the tree 
yielding fruit whose seed was in itself 
after his kind.” 

These very important verses do not con- 
vey the true meaning of the original text. 
In the latter, “grass” does not appear, but 
“verdure” (Moffatt, Fagnani) green plant 
life, bearing seed of every kind and trees 
yielding fruit of every kind, each fruit with 
its seed. ‘The essential feature here is the 
emphasis placed on “seed.” Scrence: This 
corresponds with the teachings of the mod- 
ernized interpretation of evolution to the 
effect that the primordial seas contained the 
original cells or seeds of plant life, not mean- 
ing thereby, however, all plants, since new 
ones are constantly being evolved. The 
diversity of plants is also emphasized by the 
repetition of “every kind.” 

Genesis 1:14: “God said, Let there 
be lights in the firmament of the heaven 
to divide the day from the night; and let 
them be for signs, and for seasons, and 
for days, and years;” 15. “And let them 
be for lights in the firmament of the 
heaven to give light upon the earth.” 
16. “God made two great lights, the 


greater light to rule the day, and the 
lesser light to rule the night; He made the 


[ 192 ] 


SCIENCE REMOVES CAUSES OF DISCORD. 


stars also.” 17. “And God set them in the 
firmament of the heaven to give light upon 
the earth” 18. “to rule over the day and 
over the night, and to divide the light 
from the darkness.” 


The text is self-explanatory: it outlines 
the creation of the sun, which supplies light 
of day, and the moon, as a lesser light for 
the night, the participation of the sun in the 
division of time into seasons, years and days, 
etc. ScrencE: The sun, as nucleus of the 
nebula which formed the foundation of our 
solar system, developed as such concomit- 
antly with our planet, an offshoot of the 
same nebula, while our moon is itself an off- 
shoot of the glowing and gaseous earth after 
it had left the nebula. There is concordance, 
therefore, with the Biblical teachings on the 
question. But another sequence of events 
worthy of special attention is the introduc- 
tion in the Biblical text of the sun at the 
time it was needed to sustain, by its radiance, 
light and heat, the life of plants which had 
appeared on earth. 

Genesis 1:20: “God said, Let the 
waters bring forth abundantly the mov- 


ing creature that hath life, and fowl that 
may fly above the earth in the open firma- 


13 [ 193 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


ment of heaven.” 21. “And God created 
great whales, and every living creature 
that moveth, which the waters brought 
forth abundantly, after their kind, and 
every winged fowl after his kind.” 22. 
‘And God blessed them, saying, Be fruit- 
ful and multiply, and fill the waters in 
the seas, and let fowl multiply in the 
Sree” 


Here, again, errors of translation from the 
original Hebrew text mar the true meaning 
and render it misleading as a source of 
study. As Professor Fagnani and other He- 
brew scholars translate the first sentence of 
the 20th verse, it reads: “Let the waters 
teem with living creatures.” ScrENcE: This 
latter interpretation is sustained by science, 
the first cells of animals being regarded as 
having first appeared in the waters of the 
earth, while the earliest recorded animals are 
also aquatic, i.e., the Cambrian trilobites. 

The first sentence of the 21st verse is also 
wrongly translated. The Hebrew text does 
not say “whales” but “sea-monsters of all 
species with which the waters teemed.” 
ScIENCE: teaches that even among highly 
developed animals of this period all are 
aquatic, ie., gill breathers. This included 


[194 ] 


SCIENCE REMOVES CAUSES OF DISCORD. 


animals almost as advanced in development 
as some of the higher vertebrates, though 
still aquatic. Many different large fishes are 
meant, therefore, and not merely “whales.” 

An important omission in the 21st verse 
to which Professor Fagnani calls attention 
is that of “crawling things” after the sea- 
monsters. In the Hebrew text the word 
“creeping” (remes) is used, which has 
virtually the same meaning. ‘This defici- 
ency rendered unintelligible the presence of 
“whale” and “bird” in the same sentence. 
ScIENCE: The importance of this correction 
lies in the fact that the crawling or creeping 
things in the original text refer to amphibians 
and reptiles which represent the links be- 
tween fishes and birds. The earliest birds 
were in reality reptile-like, having reptilian 
teeth, claws on their wings, and long bony 
tails coming to a point. 


Genesis 1: 24: “God said, Let the earth 
bring forth the living creature after his 
kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and 
beast of the earth after his kind; and it 
was so.” 25. “God made the beast of 
the earth after his kind, and cattle after 
their kind, and everything that creepeth 
upon the earth after his kind.” 


[195 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


The special feature of these verses is the 
stress laid upon “after his” and “their kind,” 
thus denoting the desire to emphasize the 
specific nature of each kind of animal. 
ScreNcE: While Darwin's ideas prevailed, 
this specificity was contradicted by his be- 
lef that one species of animal could produce 
another species; that apes, for example, could 
become men. But this has never been shown 
in the case of any animal, the gap between 
one species and another having never been 
filled. There may occur several modifica- 
tions during the evolution of any animal; 
thus, the horse a couple of millions of years 
ago was but one foot high and had four-toed 
hoofs instead of one; the camels were just a 
little taller than one foot; the elephant was 
no larger than the Newfoundland dog and 
underwent evolutional changes of many 
kinds. But the same animal had but one 
pedigree, his own, beginning with his original 
cell. And it is this which corresponds with 
the Biblical emphasis “each after his kind.” 

Genesis 1:26: “God said, Let us make 
man in our image, after our likeness; and 
let them have domination over the fish 


of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, 
and over the cattle, and over all the 


[ 196 ] 


SCIENCE REMOVES CAUSES OF DISCORD. 


earth, and over every creeping thing that 
creepeth upon the earth.” 27. “So God 
created man in His own image, in the 
image of God created He him; male and 
female created He them.” 28. “God blessed 
them, and God said unto them, Be fruit- 
ful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, 
and subdue it; and have dominion over 
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl 
of the air, and over every thing that 
moveth upon the earth.” 

These three verses are of capital impor- 
tance because they alone give the true version 
of the origin of mankind, “each after his 
kind.” To regard Adam and Eve as “our 
first parents” is a very harmful error as will 
be shown in the next section. Moreover, 
such individuals do not exist at all, Adam, 
in Hebrew, meaning “a man,’ while Eve 
means “life” in the sense of a spiritual entity. 
Science: The study of evolution in animals 
has rendered great service to religion by 
pointing out the true meaning of the above 
verses, which is that “image” and “likeness” 
refer, not to the physical seed or body of 
man and woman, but to his God-like spirit. 
The physical marriage is inferred by the 
admonition to “be fruitful and multiply” 
which can only be accomplished through 


[197 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


physical mating. Their spiritual nature is 
also indicated by their unique lordship over 
all other animals. This is confirmed in 
Genesis 2:7 by the complementary state- 
ment that “the Lord God formed man of 
the dust of the ground,’ referring to his 
body, “and breathed into his nostrils the 
breath of life,’ meaning His Divine Spirit, 
after which “man became a living soul.” 

Additional evidence to the same effect in 
the third chapter of this book makes this in- 
terpretation conclusive. Jt is of cardinal 
amportance because it identifies the part of 
man which is Divine, thus giving religion 
the one factor which should be cultivated and 
differentiated from the animal side of his 
nature, which, as shown in the neat chapter, 
is the source of all evil in him. 

These newer interpretations of the first 
chapter of Genesis do not alone, however, 
meet the threatening situation described by 
Dr. Batten. The third chapter of Genesis, 
as currently interpreted, is as harmful, as 
urged in the third chapter of the present 
book under the heading of “The Causes of 
Atheism.” It will be considered at length 
under the next heading. 


[198 ] 


OUR ANIMAL INSTINCTS AS CAUSE OF SIN. 


THE HUMAN INHERITANCE OF ANIMAL 
INSTINCTS AS THE CAUSE OF CRIME 
AND IMMORALITY. 


The misinterpretation of the Adam and 
Five story referred to in the preceding 
section has served, in my opinion, to weaken 
greatly its wonderful lesson and the vigor 
of its warnings against the commission of 
evil acts and the severity of its consequences. 
We have seen also in the third chapter of 
this book, and as fittingly illustrated by the 
Scopes trial, that it is the most prolific source 
of ridicule to which the Bible is subjected by 
atheists, and others who might otherwise 
have believed in religious teachings com- 
patible with logical reasoning. 

In a catechism before me, the “fall” of 
Adam and Eve, is made the starting point 
of the ‘wrath of God” upon man, who is 
thus placed in “the power of sin, death and 
the devil,” his “masters.’”’ Both ate of the 
fruit of the tree of good and evil, and for 
this disobedience are driven from Eden, with 
angels placed at its entrance to prevent re- 
turn of the culprits. 


[199 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


Adam, however, as repeatedly stated in 
this volume, is not the name of a special 
individual, but the Hebrew word for “man” 
or “a man,” while Eve, for reasons submitted 
in the third chapter of this book, does not 
mean a person at all, but “life’—the living 
spirit with which God endows all human 
beings. 

With Adam and Eve thus excluded from 
the artificial role they are thought to play in 
the so-called “original sin” which made them 
our alleged “first parents,’ what becomes 
of the story itself? 

That Adam and Eve cannot be “our first 
parents” and that our origin traceable to 
forbidden union cannot be the right inter- 
pretation is indicated by the fact that while 
in the third chapter of Genesis this alleged 
sinful conduct provokes severe arraignment 
from the Lord God, and a degree of punish- 
ment which is believed to have been perpet- 
uated to this day, it is not only condoned 
in the first chapter, but actually blessed. 
Thus, whereas in Genesis 1: 27, it is stated 
that 


“God created man in his own image; 
male and female created He them,” 


[ 200 ] 


OUR ANIMAL INSTINCTS AS CAUSE OF SIN, 


the next verse, Genesis 1:28, states that 


“God blessed them and God said unto 
them: Be fruitful and multiply and re- 
plenish the earth.” 

Not only did He bless them but, to affirm 
their superiority over all other animals, ow- 
ing to the “image” or Spirit of God of 
which they were to be “the temple,’ He also 
said (Genesis 1:26): 

“Tet them have dominion over the fish 
of the sea, over the fowl of the air, over 
the cattle and over all the earth and over 
every creeping thing that creepeth upon 
the earth.” 

It is self-evident, therefore, that far from 
being condemned by the Godhead, the normal 
process of reproduction between man and 
his wife is fully approved and even blessed, 
and that the prevailing interpretation of the 
sin of “our first parents” is erroneous. 

Again, since, as we have seen, Adam and 
Eve do not in the Hebrew text and records 
represent individuals, they cannot have been 
our first parents, while our only true first 
parents are those originally created ‘with 
other animals and in their primordial form; 
they were special seeds Divinely anointed 


[ 201 ] 





SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION, 


after our planet had reached a state wherein 
life was possible. ‘This is all to be found in 
the first chapter of Genesis, in absolute ac- 
cord, as regards their physical structure we 
have seen, with the modern interpretation of 
evolution. 

All obscurities and contradictions disap- 
pear, however, when without “Adam” and 
‘Eve’ as individuals in the lesson, the “fall” 
in Genesis (2:23 and 8: 1-24), as we shall 
now see, is interpreted as a solemn plea to 
mankind to beware of the animal instincts 
which the animal inheritance of the body in- 
cludes, while vividly illustrating the destruc- 
tive influence of sin upon the Divine spirit 
it contains. 

To apprehend clearly the newer interpre- 
tation submitted below, a few of the deduc- 
tions already reached must be clearly re- 
called =m Lhneserare. 


(1) That the human body belongs to the 
animal kingdom. 


(2) That it is the “temple of the Living 
Soul” known in ancient Hebrew theology as 
Eva (Eve, Jeve or Havvah), the Divine 
Spirit. 

[ 202 ] 


OUR ANIMAL INSTINCTS AS CAUSE OF SIN. 


(3) That Eva is this same Divine Spirit 
which a mother transmits to her child. 

(4) That Eva is the guiding spirit of the 
human animal, known to us as “conscience.” 

(5) That the “Garden of Eden” does not 
mean a terrestrial garden, but heaven, a 
celestial abode reached by the humanized- 
spirit (the “soulspirit” in the original He- 
brew text) after life only. 

(6) That the tree of “knowledge” is but 
an abbreviation of the Hebrew text which 
refers to it as “the tree of knowledge of 
good or evil,” this meaning in turn a, “good” 
due to the Divine Spirit in man and woman, 
and b, “evil” due to the promptings and 
temptations inspired by the animal instincts. 


(7) That there is no such a thing as a 
devil excepting the animal instincts, the 
ailesh.e 


The “animal inheritance,’ as the salient 
inherited factor of evolution, is not only 
sustained by science, we have seen, but 
clearly defined in the first chapter of Genesis. 

The far-reaching importance of this ani- 
mal inheritance in its relations to crime is 
illustrated by the wave of juvenile crime in 


[ 203 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


this country at the present time. The 
murder and banditry, with the ever-present 
revolver ready to kill if need be, are mainly 
traceable to the indifference to cruelty and 
absence of all consideration for the suffering 
caused. ‘This is a peculiarity of the lower 
animals. 

This may be illustrated by the behavior 
in this respect of our little friend the house 
cat. She instinctively washes her face, purrs 
with pleasure when her back is rubbed, and 
in many particulars is a bona fide house pet. 
But let her catch a mouse then cruelty will 
at once assert itself. Supposedly to whet her 
appetite, she will torture the little animal 
over an hour at times, letting it go and 
catching it again and finally crunching it to 
death, preparatory to devouring it. Her 
cruelty with birds is proverbial. Indeed, she 
belongs to a family notorious for its cruelty, 
the Felide, which includes the lion and tiger, 
the latter of which in India destroys thous- 
ands of human lives a year. 

Allowed to develop in the child without re- 
straint until manhood is reached, this tend- 
ency to cruelty assumes proportions which 
places eventually such a man beneath the 


[ 204 J 


OUR ANIMAL INSTINCTS AS CAUSE OF SIN. 


worst of animals, for the instinct which in 
the latter underlies killing propensities is 
not cruelty, which they do not understand, 
but that of self preservation. Unlike human 
murderers, the timber wolf, for example, 
kills in practically every instance only to 
satisfy its hunger. 

Moreover, we have in the wolf a close kin 
to our closest friend among the lower ani- 
mals, the dog, notably the shepherd, the 
police dog, the eskimo, the spitz and many 
other Canide. In all these, when wild, it 
is, as in the wolf, the instinct of self preserva- 
tion which evokes their killing propensities. 
When, however, they are in captivity and 
their physical needs are met, they lose their 
cruel instincts unless perhaps fear, an in- 
imical cat, a rat, etc., stirs up anew the 
fighting spirit, itself a product of the in- 
stinct of preservation. But it is not for 
food that the murderous bandits which are 
infesting this country at the present time, 
kill; it is for money—the modern golden calf. 

Analysis of the Adam and Eve story 
(leaving out repetitions and futilities, and 
introducing only such essential changes from 
the Hebrew text as will correct misleading 


[ 205 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


translations) as it occurs in the text will best 
serve to illustrate the meaning of the Divine 
admonition against sin that it is intended to 
convey. 

At the end of the second chapter of Gene- 
sis (2:25), after the symbolic or figurative 
creation of woman from the rib of man, 
there is added an apparently superfluous 
bit of information to the effect that 


‘And they were both naked the man and 
his wife and were not ashamed.” 


F’ar from being superfluous, however, this 
verse has an all-important meaning; it re- 
fers to the spiritual bodies, unclothed as 
such, before being incorporated into their 
animal bodies man and woman, for the He- 
brew text does not say “wife” but “woman.” 
This is an important detail, for “man- 
woman” is the symbol in Hebrew lore of 
God’s own image, the Spiritual part of man. 

“This divine couple,” writes Schuré,! “is 
not the first human couple on earth, but 
God’s self as manifested throughout the 
heavens. God created man in his own image; 
he created him male and female. ‘This 


1Schuré: Loc. cit., p. 192. 


[ 206 ] 


OUR ANIMAL INSTINCTS AS CAUSE OF SIN. 


divine couple is the universal spirit which, 
as Eva, manifests itself in all worlds. The 
sphere which it inhabits primarily and which 
Moses visualized is not the Garden of Eden, 
the legendary terrestrial paradise, but the 
‘limitless sphere’ of Zoroaster, the ‘superior 
land’ of Plato, the ‘universal celestial king- 
dom Heden Hadama.’” ‘Thence it was that 
Eva, the Divine breath or spirit, entered the 
human animals, male and female. 

What is the motive underlying the entrance 
of the Divine spirit Eva into an animal body 
on earth? Ancient philosophers have ex- 
plained it, we have seen, by the desire of the 
Spirit to return to the Divine sphere whence 
it came, glorified perhaps by good deeds on 
earth. But the Divinity or any part thereof 
needs no such development, perfection being 
its meet. Again, such an object would elimi- 
nate the personal identity of the earthly body 
acting as its temple for its life’s span. 
Finally, it would tend to indicate that the 
spirit itself is not a part of the Godhead, and 
but an essence of the Divinity. 

The motive and aim is a far loftier one. 
It is a spark of God’s own self destined to 
raise mankind when it will to the highest 


[ 207 J 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


destinies. By entering the human being 
which is to be its host during a lifetime, it 
endows this individual with its own identity 
as a candidate for the celestial kingdom. 
For each of us, indeed, if our conduct on 
earth is such as to warrant it, the Divine 
spirit in us is virtually a key to heaven. 

Once immured in its human temple and its 
prisoner till death, the Divine spirit begins 
its controlling influence (conscience) over 
the animal inheritance of its host, that is to 
say, over its animal instincts typified by the 
serpent (Genesis 3:1): 

“more subtle than any beast of the 
field which the Lord God had made.” 

The aggregate of the many different ani- 
mal instincts constituted the “tree of the 
knowledge of good or evil,” we have seen. 
There are many goodly instincts in animals: 
courage, fidelity, devotion, love, as in the 
dog, for instance, to cultivate, but there are 
also many evil ones to fear. Hence God’s 
warning (Genesis 2:17): 

“But of the tree of the knowledge of 
good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for 


in the day that thou eatest thereof thou 
shalt surely die.” 


[ 208 ] 


OUR ANIMAL INSTINCTS AS CAUSE OF SIN, 


To exemplify the consequences of disobey- 
ing the warning as regards yielding to pas- 
sions of animal origin of any kind, the 
serpent is pictured in action. Grovelling in 
the dust upon its belly, cursed among all 
beasts, it prompts woman to yield (Genesis 
10 SO 


NMOL nee ue ae ger tOOKs Of ther triut 
thereof, and did eat and gave also unto 


her husband with her and he did eat.” 


Here again, the Hebrew text does not 
say “husband,” but “the man,” a generic 
term which gives the text its true sense. It 
is not, therefore, to the normal marital union, 
blessed by God, we have seen, as this per- 
version of the Hebrew text would imply, but 
to the wrongdoing outside of matrimony, 
that all the above refers. While its mean- 
ing extends to all kinds of crime—quite in 
keeping with the French dictum “cherchez 
la femme” (seek the woman)—the juven- 
ile criminality which is overwhelming this 
country we have seen is in part due to young 
girls who, as police records have shown, 
owe their presence among bandits to their 
love for some scoundrel. This fact would 


14 [ 209 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 
warrant a new dictum: “cherchez Vhomme” 
(seek the man). 

That the animal instincts are solely re- 
sponsible for all the crimes inferred is in fact 
sustained by the Bible itself (Romans 8:7) 
which clearly indicates that they are foreign 
to all Divine laws: 

“The carnal mind is enmity against 
God, for it is not subject to the law of 
God, neither indeed can be.” 

As Sir Oliver Lodge recalled at the 1925 
meeting of the British Association of Sci- 
ence, “Man was brought out from among the 
animals and given knowledge of right and 
wrong—was given knowledge not grudg- 
ingly but with an open hand. The power 
was his, and from that day it was left to 
him, and him alone, to rise or fall.” 

“Fall” in the present connection means 
collectively the major sins on earth: because 
it entails loss of the most precious heritage 
in the whole wniverse: the living soul of 
celestial origin, unless, as we shall see, 
the blessings of Redemption mitigate the 
sentence. 

Recalling that the whole Biblical text 
on the subject is a divine admonition of the 


[ 210 ] 








OUR ANIMAL INSTINCTS AS CAUSE OF SIN. 





danger of evil and that “eating of the fruit” 
the temptation of Eve and her fall afford 
but an example of what all departures from 
the path of honesty, virtue, etc., provoke 
as punishment in the end, the Biblical se- 
quence of events following any major crime 
is symbolically as follows: 
Conscience-stricken, under the violent re- 
action—lashings of their Divine Spirit—they 
try to conceal their crime (Genesis 3:7), as 
figuratively implied in the verse: 


“The eyes of them both were opened, 
and they knew that they were naked; 
and they sewed fig-leaves together and 
made themselves girdles.” 


Efforts to pacify or subdue the persistent 
wails of their conscience, their Divine Eva, 
were unavailing. Indeed (Genesis 3:8) 


“They heard the voice of the Lord 
God”. . . . “and hid themselves.” 


The Divine Spirit being alone capable, we 
have seen, of contact with God—for “the 
carnal [or animal] mind is not subject to 
the law of God,’ we have seen—the man, to 
offset the reproaches of his spiritual con- 


[211 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


science, satisfies himself by shifting the blame 
on the woman (Genesis 3:12): 
“The woman whom thou gavest to be 


with me she gave me of the tree and I did 
eat.” 


while the woman’s Eva, in turn, shifts it 
on the carnal passion, the serpent and said 
(Genesis 3:13): 


“The serpent beguiled me and I did eat.” 


To bear children under such conditions is 
to cultivate grief in many directions; often 
abandoned, difficulties of all sorts occur and 
a man capable of such a crime being of low 
nature and heartless, he becomes tyrannical 
if he remains at all (Genesis 3:16): Hence 
the Divine verdict (corrected translation) as 
to the woman: 

“T will greatly multiply thy sorrow 
and thy conception; in sorrow shalt thou 
bring forth children; and thou shalt be 


subject to thy man and he will rule over 
thee.” 


Man is then cursed through his Spiritual 
conscience because he yielded to his animal 
passion, the tree of evil, disobeying all in- 
spirations from the good side of his Nature. 


[ 212 ] 


OUR ANIMAL INSTINCTS AS CAUSE OF SIN. 


The decree of God is that he return to his 
animal state for the rest of his life, Genesis 
3:17 (corrected translation). 


“Unto the man he said: Behold thou 
hast harkened unto the voice of the 
woman and hast eaten of the tree of which 
I had forbidden thee to eat; cursed is the 
ground for thee and in sorrow shalt thou 
eat of it all thy life.” 


Illustrating further that man is relegated 
to the level of the beast, he is told (Genesis 
3:18) that 


“Thorns also and thistles shall it bring 
forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb 
of the field.” 


This is additional corroborative evidence 
that we are not dealing with our “first 
parents,’ as Adam and Eve are generally 
thought to be, for thorns and thistles and 
herbs of the field are clearly indicated for 
animals—their state when divested of their 
spiritual guide. 

Further emphasizing this meaning is the 
statement in Genesis 3:21 (corrected trans- 
lation), showing also that woman shares the 
same fate: 


[ 213 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION. 


“Unto man and also unto woman the 
Lord God made coats of skins and 
clothed them.” 
thus metaphorically implying redescent to 
the animal state. 

Again, to indicate that it is the animal 
body, to the exclusion of the Divine spirit 
Eva (Genesis 3:19), which is meant: 

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou 
eat bread till thou return unto the ground; 
for out of it wast thou taken; for dust 
thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.” 

Finally, fully to emphasize the return to 
the soil of the sullied body reduced to the 
animal level, for which the Divine soul can 
no longer be a loving associate and guide, is 
God’s mandate (Ecclesiastes 12:7): 


“Then shall the dust return to the earth 
as it was; and the spirit shall return to 
God who gave it.” 

Here again science proves itself of great 
elucidative value. By pointing out the true 
meaning of evolution, it identifies the ani- 
mal source of crime, and particularly at a 
time when appropriate measures may aid in 
reducing, at least, its deep inroads among 
the youth of the whole country. It has done 


[214] 


OUR ANIMAL INSTINCTS AS CAUSE OF SIN. 


more: by placing the evolution theory on a 
sound basis science has emphasized the im- 
portance of man’s spiritual self. This may 
serve to prevent, in the future, sacrifices of 
untold spiritual existences. What this means 
we have just seen. Sin is sin and crime is 
crime in the eyes of God, and the penalty 
is not one inflicted by Him. It is a natural 
consequence, for, as we have seen, the animal 
or carnal minded are no longer subject to the 
law of God. And this applies to all major sins. 

It is here, however, that Christianity may 
once more lead to the Divine haven irre- 
spective of the dangerous rocks upon which 
the ship of human fate may have become 
wrecked. ‘he intensity of the lure and other 
circumstances may in part mitigate the guilt, 
and spiritual death be avoided by repentance 
and compensative efforts. The tree of life 
—of spiritual life—whose branches, God’s 
own, are steeped in loving pity—affords 
means of redemption where sincerity pre- 
vails. Kiven where the example afforded by 
the text prevails, compassion for innocent 
victims of the sin may become a strong source 
of appeal. Through Hin, in fact, the carnal 
parents, yielding to the love their offspring 


[ 215 ] 


SCIENCE SUSTAINS RELIGION, 


inspires, may redeem their spiritual souls, 
their child then becoming the intermediary 
for their atonement. 


“Forasmuch then as Christ hath suf- 
fered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves 
likewise with the same mind, for he that 
suffered in the flesh hath ceased from 
Siege (Gee Leleran sie) 


The meaning of the Adam and Eve story, 
purified, thus finds its normal explanation. 
Briefly, man, mankind, is warned against 
the dangers of sin and told that its major 
forms, mean loss of the Divine Spirit which 
otherwise, having acquired individuality by 
its temporary stay in the physical body, 
would have returned to the heavenly realm. 


99 


The “original sin,’ then, does not mean 
the connubial relations of our so-called first 
parents Adam and Eve, who never existed as 
individuals, but owr animal inheritance, which 
as “serpent” tends to destroy us unless mas- 
tered. 'The term “serpent” here is likewise 
symbolic, as is that of “devil,” the figurative 
tempter, who with his horns, tail and hoofs 
typically represents the animal in us, the 
source of perdition if we allow its evil in- 
fluence to prevail. 


[ 216 ] 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE CONSCIENCE AS THE INTERNAL 
VOICE OF THE DIVINE SPIRIT. 


THE DIVINE SPIRIT, MANIFESTED THROUGH 
THE CONSCIENCE, AS THE MORAL 
GUIDE OF MANKIND. 


FLE various causes of the “fateful hours 
through which Christianity is now pass- 
ing,” according to Dr. Batten and many 
other members of the clergy, appear to me 
to have been accounted for in the foregoing 
chapters. 

We have seen that many errors of transla- 
tion in Genesis necessarily caused misinter- 
pretation of its true teachings and that, bear- 
ing as they did upon fundamental questions 
such as creation of the universe and of man, 
they compromised the integrity of the entire 
Christian doctrine. Elucidated through the 
light shed by science on Genesis, however, 
it no longer presents elements for contro- 
versies between literalists and dissenting in- 
terpreters) onthe: text. 

On the whole, elimination of the errors in 
Genesis, by demonstrating the perfect con- 


[217 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


cordance of the teachings of the original He- 
brew text with modern science, has accom- 
plished three important missions: (1) It has 
supplied a far stronger foundation for the 
Old Testament, i.e., for the Jewish Faith, 
particularly among those who have con- 
sidered Genesis as negligible on the plea 
that it is made up mainly of Oriental 
legends; (2) it has through the same elucida- 
tive process removed all opportunity for 
ridicule such as that addressed to the Adam 
and Eve story and other misleading inter- 
pretations; and, (3) it has demonstrated the 
soundness of the fundamental doctrine of 
Christianity, our belief in God, the Father 
of Christ and all mankind. It seems per- 
missible to conclude, therefore, that Christi- 
anity is in reality stronger today than it has 
ever been. | 

We may well agree, therefore, with Bishop 
Manning, of New York, when he wrote two 
years ago, that “this is not a day of dis- 
couragement or of misgiving, but of great 
and perhaps unprecedented opportunity for 
those who preach the Gospel of Christ. Two 
things are opening the door wide to the 
preaching of the gospel. One of these is the 


[ 218 ] 


DIVINE SPIRIT AS MORAL GUIDE. 


new hope that is now stirring in the hearts 
of men, the other is the world’s present des- 
perate need. Great visions of peace and 
world brotherhood are before men’s minds. 
It is the gospel which has produced these 
visions. It is the gospel only which can 
bring them to fulfillment,” particularly, I 
would add, if the errors in Genesis and 
others submitted are given due consideration. 

Indeed, Genesis is essentially the portion 
of the Bible dedicated to God Himself, and 
by contributing evidence to His presence in 
all nature, which means the universe as a 
whole and its multitude of functions and 
manifestations, science has done much to- 
wards placing belief in Him where doubt 
reigned on a solid foundation. This in itself 
places the Gospel on a plane which should 
claim increased confidence, for the scientific 
proof which established as a truth that the 
Hebrew records were the Word of God, thus 
verifying the accuracy of teachings dating 
back over thirty-five centuries, simultaneously 
indicated that the revelations of God, through 
His Son, which treat of spiritual and heavenly 
things, likewise convey Divine messages 
worthy of absolute faith. 


[ 219 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


The soundness of Christianity becomes a 
living truth when, with God as the source 
of inspiration, we are asked to believe that 
He established a spiritual relationship with 
us through Christ, and destined Him to en- 
lighten the world. We have seen in the 
third chapter that all human beings are en- 
dowed with a Divine Spirit, and that the 
doctrine of evolution had emphatically de- 
tached this Spirit from the physical body by 
demonstrating the animal nature of the lat- 
ter. We have seen also that it was the 
superior intellect of man and his nobler in- 
stincts which detached him from the rest 
of the world—from all other animals—and 
which made of him the “lord of creation.” 

It-is not difficult to believe, under these 
conditions, that One man should have been 
gifted with a Divine Spirit infinitely greater 
and superior in those qualities which dis- 
tinguish man from all else in nature, intel- 
lect, pity, sympathy, altruism, mercy, tender- 
ness, judgment, equity, creative power based 
on deductive reasoning, conscience, morality 
and the notion of right and wrong, belief in 
a Superior Being and immortality. One has 
but to recall what one man such as Pasteur— 


[ 220 ] 


DIVINE SPIRIT AS MORAL GUIDE. 


whose countenance graces the frontispiece 
of this book—has done for the world either 
directly, or indirectly through his followers, 
and realize that at least two hundred million 
people would not be living today had he not 
come to earth, to be impressed with the pos- 
sibilities and the far reaching powers of one 
Divine Spirit laboring lovingly for the sake 
of God and humanity as did Christ. 

Need one doubt in the face of such an 
example—so modern that some of us can 
still speak as eye-witnesses of the pre- 
Pasteurian era and its horrors—that a Christ 
could also have lived whose purpose in life 
was to urge upon us that we harbored a 
spark of God, 

“The true Light that lighteth every 
man that cometh into the world.” (John 
LO) c 

Cardinal Manning,! Westminster, London, 
defined this human endowment clearly fifty 
years ago when he wrote: “Every living soul 
has an illumination of God in the order of 
nature by the light of conscience and by the 
light of reason, and by the working of the 


1 Cardinal Manning: “The Internal Mission of the Holy 
Ghost,” London, 1875, p. 18. 


[ 221 ] 


_ 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


Spirit of God in his head and in his heart.’ 
I may recall in this connection that stress 
was laid repeatedly in foregoing chapters 
upon the conscience as the internal voice of 
the Divine Spirit. Nor is it a special her- 
itage of any one race, creed or color, this 
Divine endowment; as the same distinguished 
prelate states, its “working is universal in 
the soul of every individual.” 

In all mankind, then, in the light of all 
the data submitted, scientific and religious, 
we find the existence of a Divine soul (or 
Holy Ghost) which manifests itself through 
the conscience and as such, therefore, sub- 
ject to the decision of the mind to accept 
or reject the plea of Divine Spirit to remain 
on the path of righteousness, as against the 
promptings of the animal passions—the 
symbolic “devil” as we have seen. Each in- 
dividual man or woman, therefore, is a 
free agent to do right or wrong. “And 
it was against these ever present dangers 
within ourselves that Christ’s Divine mis- 
sion came to warn us, sacrificing His life 
on the altar of devotion to us all rather than 
deny his mission. As stated in Matthew 
20; 28: 


[ 222 ] 


DIVINE SPIRIT AS MORAL GUIDE. 


“The Son of Man came not to be min- 
istered unto but to minister, and to give 
His life a ransom for many.” 

Hence the fact that Christianity is es- 
sentially a religion of redemption in which 
the love of God is transmitted through His 
Son to mankind, but in which the Son bids 
us, in the name of that Divine love, to fol- 
low the right path—that which eventually 
leads to immortality—a sacred message to us, 
indeed, 


“Because Christ also suffered for us 
leaving us an example that ye should fol- 
low his footsteps.” (I Peter 2: 21.) 

The mission of Christ was and is today 
to prevent evil and to redeem where adequate 
repentance and reparation make it at all pos- 
sible. In conformity with the mandates of 
His father, however, and where impenitence 
with trampling of moral obligations persist, 
sin is not condoned, “tribulation and anguish 
upon every soul of man that doeth evil” be- 
ing totally divested of indiscriminate indul- 
gence. Favoritism is not compatible with 
justice. 

Perdition thus becomes the consequence of 
persistent refusal to listen to the voice of 


[ 223 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


what may truly be called our Divine con- 
science, God’s voice in us, to beware of our 
animal mind and instincts, and not to yield 
to their temptations. 

A striking feature of the evolution of 
religion as represented in the Old and New 
Testament is its equity, with love of man- 
kind as its inspiration. Its beginnings were 
laid in the remote past, doubtless, as some 
hold, in Oriental legends and primitive folk- 
lore. An important fact is generally over- 
looked, however, in this connection: this is, 
as previously stated, that evolution prevails 
in psychology just as it does in all pure and 
applied sciences. When the human animal 
had progressed sufficiently to reason coher- 
ently, the dawn of spirituality occurred as 
the expression of an endowment dating back 
to the original cell in the primordial seas. 
All human beings, irrespective of their mental 
level, even savages of the lowest type, show 
some evidence of their belief in the presence 
in them of a soul or spirit and its perpetua- 
tion after death. Whether adoring a mere 
stick of wood, an animal or emblem, some 
invisible Deity is the real object of their cult 
—an instinctive longing for the Great Spirit. 


[ 224 ] 


DIVINE SPIRIT AS MORAL GUIDE. 


Just as we found God behind all nature, 
supplying the self-evident intelligence which 
alone accounts for the wonderful coordina- 
tion of the whole universe, the formation of 
matter, our earth, plants, man, etc., so is He 
behind the evolution of what probably is His 
ultimate aim: the development of spiritual 
entities versed in the suffering of mankind 
and able to participate with Him in the 
alleviation of these sufferings. 

The higher psychic expressions of man, 
enlightened by the Divine Spark, were al- 
ready of a high order many thousands of 
years ago. The so-called Oriental legends 
were fraught with a deep meaning that the 
mechanistic civilization of our day fails to 
understand. ‘The early Aryan Vedas, the 
trinity of Krishna which preceded Buddha by 
twenty-four centuries, and gave the religions 
of India their foundation, the Egyptian tra- 
ditions registered hieroglyphically on stones, 
tablets, etc., are but evolutional gradations 
quite as Divine in their ultimate aim as the 
cosmic and creative phenomena we have re- 
viewed. They all served their purpose, filling 
the needs of the times and the psychology 
of the peoples for whom they were intended. 


15 [ 225 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


All, however, had the Divine self in common, 
even though spiritually visualized by them 
in most instances through concrete objects. 
Then came the great step of the prophet 
Abraham who initiated the downfall of 
idolatry, transforming polytheistic — beliefs 
into monotheism, 1.e., the recognition of a 
single Divinity, one God above us all, an 
inspirational conception which another great 
prophet, Moses, brought to fruition. The 
whole evolutional process before this period 
had not as yet exhibited its real trend, the 
needs of the people being fear of the Divinity. 
The chapters of Genesis analyzed in the 
foregoing pages indicate rigid interpretation 
of sin. This is due to the fact that Genesis, 
the Jewish part of the Bible, was in reality 
a code of laws having for their purpose to 
mitigate and finally abolish the evil practices 
which prevailed at the time, mainly as a re- 
sult of idolatry devoid of all spiritual Divine 
foundation. The Jewish laws were justly 
severe, but the good of mankind was clearly 
discernible on all sides. Crimes, for instance, 
involving the purity of womankind, were 
punished with rigor. Eiven when appropri- 
ated as booty of war, a woman was treated 


[ 226 ] 


DIVINE SPIRIT AS MORAL GUIDE. 


as a wife. Hence the severity of the punish- 
ment meted out to evil doers of this class in 
the “Adam and Eve” story analyzed under 
the preceding heading—which but pictured 
the Jewish attitude towards all sin. 

The appearance of Christianity, however, 
added a new note to the evolution of religious 
thought: that of love of God and humanity. 
“Love one another” became an object in life, 
with active sympathy for the indigent, the 
oppressed, the sufferer and the sinner, the 
aim being to look upon the sin itself with 
abhorrence, and upon the sinner as a possible 
object of redemption. 

Christianity appears in its true glory as 
the essence of Divine love, however, when it 
is analyzed through the light of its evolu- 
tional past, back to the time when, many 
thousands of years ago, man’s development 
had progressed far enough to enable him to 
recognize his instinctive longing for God and 
for the heavenly realm. But the link with 
God is traceable still farther back many mil- 
lions of years, to the primordial seas. It 
was here, in the primal cell destined to be- 
come man, that the Divine Father endowed 
mankind with the power of becoming the 


[ 227 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


temple of the most precious gift in the 
world—that which really constitutes man— 
a spark of His Divine Self. It was then, 
by endowing their original cell with its 
affinity for His spirit, that He “created man 
in His own image,” “male and female,” and 
“blessed them,” giving them control over 
everything on earth as a token of His 
parentage which eventually would lead them 
to heavenly bliss. 


“For God so loved the world that He 
gave His only begotten Son that whoso- 
ever believed in Him, should not perish 


but have everlasting life.’ (John 3:16.) 


It is a message of love from the Heavenly 
Father that our conscience conveys to us, 
therefore, whenever it pleads with us to resist 
temptation. It is for us to decide whether 
our animal instincts are to be allowed to 
prevail over God’s love for us and all that it 
means. As urged by a distinguished clergy- 
man of Philadelphia, Dr. Floyd W. Tomkins, 


in a published sermon: 


“This great gospel truth of ‘God 
with us’ opens to us the glory of etern- 
ity. Being members, through this new 
birth of Christ, of the heavenly family 


[ 228 ] 


CULTIVATION OF CONSCIENCE IN THE CHILD. 


though still struggling on earth, we look 
forward to the endless years when ‘at 
home with God’ we shall enter upon our 
inheritance.” 


CULTIVATION OF THE DIVINE SPIRIT 
IN THE CHILD. 


The many directions in which the Divine 
Spirit may be cultivated to prevent or 
counteract the wrongdoings or vices due to 
our animal inheritance can be studied more 
profitably by the clergy than by a layman. 
A few words on its bearing upon the de- 
velopment of children, however, may prove 
useful. 

In one of his published sermons, Dr. C. 
H. Parkhurst refers to a little blind girl 
who, on being told that the Being she wor- 
shiped was called God, said, “I did not know 
His name, but I know Him.” Commenting 
on the source of this instinctive knowledge— 
“instinctive” because it is found in all human 
beings irrespective of their psychic level or 
of their race—the same eminent clergyman 
remarks: “We cannot embrace God by our 
thought but we can sense Him by our love. 
For love is the same in both worlds and is 


[ 229 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


the bridge by which we can span the in- 
finite’ chasm 33). .s...0.) 7) Lhe. child@ismvens 
close to the Kingdom for the reason that its 
affections have not yet become confused by 
its thinking.” I might add another reason 
submitted in the third chapter of this book, 
and which harmonizes with Dr. Parkhurst’s 
statement: a child is at first undisturbed by: 
its environment, physical and psychical, and 
is nearer to God in its purity, as abode or 
temple of the Divine Spirit which it has re- 
ceived through its mother, nurtured and 
swathed in a haven of maternal love. As we 
have seen, the infant 


‘shall be filled with the Holy Ghost 
even from his mother’s womb. (Luke 
1s15:) 


It is this lily from heaven which needs 
devoted protection and watchfulness during 
the dangerous periods of childhood and 
adolescence. The struggle between the ani- 
mal instincts of the child is keenest, with the 
chances greatly on the animal side, during 
this period of life, owing to the exuberance 
of all functions, physical and psychic, and 
the slight control that the conscience can ob- 


[ 230 | 


CULTIVATION OF CONSCIENCE IN THE CHILD. 


tain over the untutored animal mind. It is 
here that the dutiful parent fulfills a Divine 
mission, by leading the child in the right 
path, which means here, pointing to the 
dangers on earth and in heaven through sub- 
serviance and obedience to unrestrained ani- 
mal passions, which later lead to the pit of 
sorrow regardless of the gain any evil prac- 
tice may obtain. 

“What is a man profited if he shall 
gain the whole world and lose his own 
soulP”? (Matthew 16: 26.) 

The animal passions and instincts in an 
infant usually begin to show themselves after 
the memory has been developing some time. 
Smiling at parents or other persons it cares 
for may, for instance, begin as early as the 
third week in some, though usually two or 
three weeks later. This is the incipient 
memory, since it denotes recognition and 
remembrance of the person smiled at. ‘The 
true memory, however, that capable of re- 
ceiving lasting impressions, appears only 
when the child is two and a half years old 
and is quite marked during the fourth year. 
This period marks the dawn of mind when 
the conflict between the animal inheritance 


[ 231 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


in the child and its Spiritual self begins to 
assert itself. 

It was formerly thought that association 
of ideas, thinking, reasoning, were essential 
to the human mind as individual “faculties,” 
as they were called, of the soul. At present, 
however, animals are well known to carry 
out these mental processes also, through im- 
pressions received by way of their senses, the 
sight, taste, hearing, etc., the animal brain 
combining these impressions to build up what 
is termed a “perception.” All these qualities 
and the processes in the brain through which 
they are manifested are similar in the animal 
and child, both being of the same source. 
They are all animal functions, and in the 
child due also to its animal structure or in- 
heritance. 

“Animal inheritance” does not mean bad 
traits only but also many qualities, common 
to both animal and child, including some of 
a high order. Thus, as we have seen, ani- 
mals often show affection, great devotion, 
faithfulness, tenderness, and other fine traits. 
Such an animal, the dog, for instance, may 
appear far more intelligent than a child of 
the same age. This is because the mind of 


[ 282 ] 


CULTIVATION OF CONSCIENCE IN THE CHILD. 


animals develops far more rapidly. Even 
though they are of animal origin, these quali- 
ties should be cultivated in the child along 
with other laudable traits that it may show. 
Appreciation and encouragement are potent 
factors in this connection. Brutality avails 
nothing and cultivates stubbornness. ‘The 
child should be held on a high plane. 

Unfortunately, the animal inheritance in 
the child extends beyond these finer traits. 
Due to instincts developed in the course of 
the evolution of their species, as defensive 
measures, self preservation, etc., and per- 
petuated, animals show cruelty, selfishness, 
stealing propensities, greed, violent temper, 
disregard for all other animals, particularly 
where food is concerned. The fox stealing 
chickens, the cat and dog stealing meat are 
familiar reminders of traits in animals which 
a child may owe to its animal instincts, un- 
less taught early that it is one of the worst 
crimes he may commit since it is one of those 
which frequently lead to murder. We shall 
see in the next section to what extent steal- 
ing prevails in this country and that a large 
proportion of the children of various States 
consider it as quite permissible! 


[ 233 J 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


Judge Gary, Chairman of the United 
States Steel Corporation, has recently urged 
the utter folly in this era of great opportuni- 
ties, to resort to dishonesty to succeed in any- 
thing. “Square dealing is becoming more 
and more the rule in big business, and the 
young man or woman looking to his or her 
future welfare would do well to take the 
Golden Rule as a foundation on which to 
build.”” Indeed, honesty should be taught in 
every home, in all schools and from every 
pulpit, if the children of today are not to 
perpetuate the prevailing crime tide. 

Parents in training their growing child 
and watching for any deviation from the path 
of righteousness should remember that the 
conscience of the child is the voice of tits 
Spiritual self. By cultivating the child’s 
knowledge of this Divine influence and aid- 
ing it by kindly explanations to realize that 
He is with it all times watching, watching 
and watching for its own good on earth and 
in heaven, parents will themselves become a 
part of the Divine mission and love, added 
to their own. Prepared as we have all been 
in the primordial seas to become the spiritual 
images of God, these anointed seedlings, 


[ 234 ] 


CULTIVATION OF CONSCIENCE IN THE CHILD. 


through evolution, perpetuate the blessing 
until the human brain, sufficiently developed, 
can assume its true role in the cosmos. The 
time finally arrives, however, when, loved 
of God and loved of man, the human mother 
assumes her truly Divine role, that of acting 
as the link between God and her offspring 
for its spiritual self. 

Parental well directed efforts soon bring 
their reward. As Professor J. Mark Bald- 
win, one of our most distinguished psy- 
chologists wrote some time ago concerning 
sentiment, an efflorescence of an expression 
of animals in man: “The thought of God 
gives rise to the religious sentiment, that of 
the good to the moral and ethical sentiment, 
that of the beautiful to the esthetic senti- 
ment. ‘These sentiments represent the most 
refined and noble fruitage of the life of feel- 
ing.” But I would add, sentiment in the 
animal, the expression of devotion and love 
of a dog for its master, for example, can only 
act as subsoil for the seed. Indeed, the 
religious, moral, ethical and esthetic senti- 
ments are not witnessed in the best of our 
animal friends. It is here that the Divine 
Spirit exerts its influence for good—an ever- 


[ 235 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


present white light in our soul which will 
never fail those who respond to its pleadings. 

Having carried out their sacred duty to 
prepare the minds of children at a tender 
age, they have twined the vine in the proper 
direction, utilized the kindly instincts of 
their animal nature to the best advantage, 
while evoking a sentiment which has much to 
do with the whole question in point and 
limited to mankind, the knowledge of, and 
distinction between right and wrong, which 
enables them to thwart those animal in- 
stincts which prompt evil. 

But they have done more, for they have 
prepared the mind of the child for the higher 
manifestations of the specific inherent powers 
of the Divine Spirit in them, Gods own. 
It is then that the role of creator asserts 
itself through science, art, literature, etc., 
consciousness of what is noble and true, 
altruism, firm belief in God and the pro- 
longation of life after death and the ability 
through spoken language of developing all 
higher relations and understandings. 'They 
have led their child in the Divine path and 
earned for it and for themselves eternal 
blessings. 


[ 236 ] 


CONSCIENCE IN PREVENTION OF IMMORALITY. 


THE CONSCIENCE AS A FACTOR IN MEASURES 
FOR THE PREVENTION OF IMMORALITY. 


When the school age has been reached, 
the training of a child, particularly if public 
schools must be attended, is a serious prob- 
lem under present conditions. All factors 
which should protect his moral future ap- 
pear to have conspired to facilitate his down- 
fall, e.g., home and school conditions and 
religious controversies. 

With regard to the home influence, through 
which the child should receive both religious 
and ethical training, we are brought face to 
face with a deplorable state of things. 

President Coolidge, in a recent address 
(October 25, 1925), attributed to decreased 
parental influence, at least in part, the 
crime wave described in the first chapter of 
this book. “There are too many indications 
that the functions of parenthood are break- 
ing down,” the President said. “Too many 
people are neglecting the real well being of 
their children, shifting the responsibility for 
their actions, and turning over supervision 
of their discipline and conduct to the juvenile 


[ 237 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


courts. It is stated on high authority that 
a very large proportion of the outcasts and 
criminals come from the ranks of those who 
lost the advantages of normal parental con- 
trol in their youth.” 

The dangers to which childhood and 
adolescence are exposed today are far greater 
even than President Coolidge’s timely ad- 
monition would tend to suggest. Mr. Child, 
who conducted the extensive study of the 
“crime tide’ in this country, also reviewed 
in the first chapter of this volume, remarks 
in this connection: “It is about time to face 
the fact and remember that substantially 
the whole burden of responsibility for the 
sweeping torrent of youth into lawlessness 
which swells our already scandalous felony 
record rests on the failure of the American 
homes.” ‘The press of the whole country 
has emphasized this fact so frequently of 
late that it need only be recalled. 

A physician is inclined, however, to dis- 
criminate closely because of the nature of 
his profession. He witnesses in his daily 
work the finer sides of mankind, its capacity 
for devotion, self sacrifice and love when the 
life of a child is in danger. In his experi- 


[ 238 ] 


CONSCIENCE IN PREVENTION OF IMMORALITY. 


ence a large proportion of parents are as 
dutiful as they ever were, but the conditions 
have so changed as to render their task far 
more difficult than it was formerly. ‘Then, 
the tide was entirely in the direction favor- 
ing parental advice; now, the tide is en- 
tirely the other way. Nor would he concur 
with those who contend that all young people 
are now refractory to good advice; he would 
hold that the proportion of pure-minded girls 
and boys with gentlemanly instincts is still 
very large. On the whole, he would adopt 
the general principle of aiding all parents, 
including the derelict, to realize the dangers 
to which children are exposed nowadays and 
to protect them by adequate religious and 
ethical training. 

The public schools and also the various 
churches come in for a great share of re- 
sponsibility. It should be fully realized, in 
fact, that public schools, under existing con- 
ditions, and despite the faithful efforts of 
their teachers, are dangerous sources of con- 
tamination through the fact that all children 
—including those from homes in which drug 
addiction, alcoholism, crimes and vices of all 
sorts—must attend school by law. 


[ 239 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


It is here mainly that the wave of im- 
morality and crime which is growing apace 
with time among our adolescents, finds its 
main sustenance. ‘This is shown in several 
directions. Dishonesty, for example, is strik- 
ingly prevalent among children. In a study 
of the question throughout the country cov- 
ering four years, Professor Athearn, of 
Boston University, found that both in the 
East and Middle West, between twenty 
and eighty per cent. of the children of vari- 
ous communities did not deem it wrong to 
get money dishonestly, particularly from 
lawyers, bankers, landlords, manufacturers 
and railroads. 'To a hypothetical question 
as to what they would do if sent out to buy 
something for twenty cents and it cost only 
ten, children between seven and twelve years 
of age who would keep the dime averaged 
in Brooklyn, sixty-six per cent.; in New 
York City, seventy per cent. and in 
Northern Massachusetts, forty per cent.! 

Professor Athearn attributes all this dis- 
honesty mainly to failure of the churches 
to do their duty in the public schools. Speak- 
ing as a Director of the Institute of Social 
and Religious Research, he contends that 


[ 240 ] 


CONSCIENCE IN PREVENTION OF IMMORALITY. 
“the cause of crime is not that children are 
more depraved than ever before, but because 
we set up a system of secular education to 
secure a high intellectual level in the youth of 
our country, and then to protect the religious 
liberty and political liberty we removed 
religion from the public schools. We 
charge the church,” writes Prof. Athearn, 
“with being the major cause of crime. The 
church told democracy one hundred years 
ago to separate religion from the state; the 
church would take care of the moral train- 
ing of the young, the state of the intellectual 
training. ‘The church has failed lamentably 
in its trust. We believe that the crime wave 
in America will continue as long as the 
church fails in its duty to provide adequate 
religious, moral or ethical training for the 
young.” In other words, it is the “dog in 
the manger” attitude of the various churches 
which causes the children to be sacrificed in 
the public schools through lack of adequate 
training. 

The views I have submitted in the fore- 
going chapters appear to me to have afforded 
a common ground for the rectification of 
this great drawback. The solidity of the 


16 [ 241 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


theistic doctrine having been greatly strength- 
ened, and God being the recognized Head of 
the three great faiths, Protestant, Roman 
Catholic and Jewish, restriction of the re- 
ligious instruction in schools to the Godhead 
and ethics, including particularly honesty, 
leaving all else to the particular church or 
denomination to which each pupil belongs, 
would settle this knotty question and give 
each child a solid religious foundation for 
any creed. 


It is quite evident in the light of these 
various sources of moral deterioration that 
evolution even as misinterpreted by its 
critics, is not the sole source of iniquities. 
But it contributes its share, as misunder- 
stood, in the furtherance of atheism. ‘Thus, 
the pupil even when favored by home, church 
and Sunday-school training, finds the Bibli- 
cal teachings on creation thus acquired all 
contradicted and perhaps annulled by solid 
data placed before him at the high school or 
college he attends. Llogical statements from 
the Bible versws sound reasoning based on 

1 The children of objecting free thinkers and atheists could 


be excused but by special request by letters which should be 
kept on file. 


[ 242 ] 


CONSCIENCE IN PREVENTION OF IMMORALITY. 


facts, soon decide the issue: atheism wins 
the day. 

Hence the recent statement of Bishop 
Freeman, of Washington, in reference to 
the Bible: “By many it is tolerated as es- 
sential to the social order, but it is neither 
respected nor revered as it once was and its 
authority is challenged and questioned.” 
And why should it not be? I have shown 
that it contains many man-made errors 
which pervert its text and divine meaning. 
The remedy lay, therefore, precisely in elim- 
inating these errors and restoring thereby 
the authority and respect the Bible formerly 
enjoyed. It is this rdle which I have at- 
tempted to enact. 

But this is not all. We have seen that 
evolution as shown in the preceding chapter 
harmonizes with that outlined in Genesis 
and also in the second chapter, that it coin- 
cides with and sustains religion in every way. 
Why not teach this to the child? If this 
were done, there would be no contradiction 
of what he had previously learned in his 
religious studies and instead of becoming 
an atheist, his religious belief and faith would 
only be fortified. 


[243 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


The child should not be confused by the 
various theories extant. He should be taught 
only the elements of evolution. A wonder- 
fully interesting primer or little book could 
be written for children, showing in the 
simplest words and by illustrations how birds 
developed from fishes by way of the reptiles; 
horses from much smaller ones with four 
toes; elephants from little beasts hardly the 
size of a pig, ete. “Evolution” then would 
no longer be a source of discord or even of 
distrust. 

Non-sectarian concordance in schools and 
elimination of dissensions on the evolution 
question being provided for, how can we deal 
with the deficient home training problem? 

We have seen that President Coolidge 
attributes the crime wave in this country to 
decreased parental influence. In doing so 
he but voices severe condemnation from many 
directions. Judge Archbald, of the Juvenile 
Court of Los Angeles, for instance, holds 
that “about ninety-five per cent. of youthful 
delinquency today can, for the most part, 
be blamed on bad home conditions.” Com- 
menting on these and other authoritative 
opinions, Mr. Child remarks: “The respon- 


[ 244 J 


CONSCIENCE IN PREVENTION OF IMMORALITY. 


sibility is not to be passed on to nurses, 
governesses, public-school teachers, or to the 
asinine philosophy that children must be free 
to develop in their own glorious self-expres- 
siveness without guidance or companionship.” 
Hence the proposal from various directions 
to discipline the parents for neglect of duty 
to the children! 

Brutality is once more raising its foul 
head. It is my opinion that the sooner the 
country overcomes its growing tendency to 
resort to this lowest of animal instincts to 
attain its ends, the sooner it will succeed in 
bringing them to a successful issue. Par- 
ticularly does this apply to the decreased 
parental influence problem. 

We have to contend in this growing trait 
with another evil result of the “original sin” 
fiction of Adam and Eve—both mythical in- 
dividuals as we have seen. The Calvinistic 
doctrine was but one of its baneful offshoots. 
Not content to picture God as cold, heart- 
less and brutal, who looked upon us, His 
creatures, as loathsome products of this dis- 
obedience, it doomed infants, our offspring, 
to everlasting hell fires as the ultimate 
progeny of the guilty pair, inflicting heart- 


[ 245 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


breaking sorrow upon mothers in numbers 
untold. 

Science has never unearthed a vestige of 
proof sustaining our descent from this so- 
called first pair, and for many decades has 
been urging its invalidity. In keeping with 
this sound attitude, I submitted in the pre- 
ceding chapter a totally different interpre- 
tation of the Adam and Eve story, but one 
fully compatible with God’s true nature—a 
Paternal admonition to beware of our ani- 
mal instincts, the sources of sin. 

If the “death, doom and destruction” pro- 
duct of the “original sin” misconception is 
referred to here, it is because there still lurks 
in the religious teachings of our day, so 
much of the “fear God” element that His 
dominating attribute, love for us all, is ob- 
scured and often lost. As is stated in I 
John 4:16: 

‘We have known and believed the love 
that God hath to us. God is love; and 
he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, 
and God in him.” 

Many of us resent today being driven to 
do what is right through fear. E:xperience 
based on several decades of contact with 


[ 246 ] 


CONSCIENCE IN PREVENTION OF IMMORALITY. 


medical students has taught me that affection 
for them and their full knowledge that I 
held them on a high plane has made the 
teaching career a blissful one for me. What 
can be done with our young men and women 
can certainly be done with the mothers and 
fathers of children whose welfare it is the 
duty of each one of us to protect. Indeed, 
as stated in II Timothy 1:7: 


“God hath not given us the spirit of 
fear, but of power, and of love, and of a 
sound mind.” 


And a “sound mind” in the present con- 
nection embodies another Divine attribute, 
conscience. Here again we are dealing with 
a scientific fact solidly anchored by usage, as 
denoted by the expressions “quickened con- 
science,” “troubled conscience,” “‘conscienti- 
ous scruples,” ete. Conscience is also solidly 
established as a philosophical entity. While, 
as we have seen, Cardinal Manning, of West- 
minster, many years ago stated that “every 
living soul has an illumination of God... . 
by the light of conscience,” het also defined 
conscience as “the reason judging of right 


1 Loc. cit., p. 227. 
[ 247 J 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


and wrong.” And if we ask what “reason” 
means, the great English prelate answers 
that “the human reason is that part of our 
nature which is in the most immediate con- 
tact with God, and the reason in us is, there- 
fore, in a special way the image of God. 
It is the light of God in the soul.” 

It is this light which should guide our 
treatment of the parent and home influence 
question. 

No people in the world are more amenable 
to appeals through the heart and soul than 
are the American people. The whole world 
knows this through their never failing tender- 
ness and aid whenever suffering could be re- 
duced through their generosity. What, there- 
fore, may we not expect when we appeal to 
such people on behalf of their children? 

If the message of this book has been 
conveyed as intended, it is that religion and 
science closely interwoven and working for 
the good of mankind have enabled us to 
teach a child that God loves him and pro- 
tects him; that forming part of him, God is 
constantly present; that God’s voice is that 
which he hears through his conscience, and 
that his conscience is itself a part of the 


[ 248 ] 





CONSCIENCE IN PREVENTION OF IMMORALITY. 





Divine intelligence of which his body is the 
abode during life, and which returns to God 
after death. 

What parent would not aid God and do 
his all with Him to save his own child? My 
experience of nearly fifty years of medical 
practice enables me to answer this question. 
I have never seen a mother fail in her de- 
votion to her child—except one and she, 
poor woman, died in an insane asylum. And 
I have every reason to believe that a father’s 
love is as unfailing. I have seen parental 
love in the slums, the hut, and the palace. 
Where normal mentality prevailed, z.¢., where 
insanity, drug addiction, alcoholism and other 
vices did not pervert normal inclinations, it 
always stood out as the most dependable 
of human qualities, the very essence of God’s 
own love. 

An appeal to this noblest of sentiments 
will soon evoke response and a first great 
step will have been taken towards the ef- 
fective protection of the millions of children 
now exposed to conditions which may entail 
degradation and moral death for many of 
them. Many of the mentally undependable 
referred to above will not respond; it is here 


[ 249 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


and here only that protective measures on 
behalf of their children can be exercised 
within legal limits. 

On the whole, the prevention of immoral- 
ity in our growing generation is dependent 
upon procedures which can all be carried 
out. ‘These measures are: 

1. Non-sectarian teaching of the solidity of 
the theistic doctrine in all public schools, thus 
affording a solid background for any creed 
taught at the home or church of each pupil. 

2. Teaching of the elements of evolution 
in schools in such a way as to illustrate the 
existing harmony between science and the 
Biblical version of creation, including that 
of plant and animal life with man as the 
only animal endowed with a Divine spirit 
and mind. 

3. A country-wide campaign appealing to 
all families to realize the growing dangers 
to which their children are exposed and sug- 
gesting kindly measures through which they 
may be protected. 

4. Active measures to protect children who 
through their immoral, irresponsible or un- 
willing parents are doomed to a life of im- 
morality and crime. 


[ 250 ] 





CONSCIENCE IN PREVENTION OF IMMORALITY. 


In the latter connection the great wealth 
which has accumulated in this country could 
contribute to the redemption of its most ex- 
posed youth of both sexes to a degree almost 
beyond computation. We have many houses 
of correction, reformatories, etc., but they 
are intended for youths who have already 
fallen into the tentacles of wrong doing in 
its many forms. What is needed today is a 
class of institutions in which the protection 
of children exposed to contaminating en- 
vironments will be taken care of and brought 
up with due tact and consideration, as good 
and honest members of every community. 

Laudable efforts are being made in this 
direction by various groups, brotherhoods, 
societies, welfare workers, etc., but the main 
harmful factor is unavoidably perpetuated 
by all such means, viz., the continued expos- 
ure to deteriorating home influences. Hence 
the need of institutions in which the child 
would reside, be educated and trained in the 
path of righteousness. 

Men and women of means who would 
create and foster such institutions would not 
only do incalculable good but they would 
experience on earth much of the bliss that is 


[ 251 ] 


CONSCIENCE AS VOICE OF DIVINE SPIRIT. 


promised us all in heaven—a glow in that 
spirit which God gave us and whose expres- 
sion manifests itself through our conscience. 
And when we bear the motive in mind, check- 
ing the wave of crime which is engulfing 
our youth and threatening increasingly the 
childhood of the entire nation, the very pil- 
lars of its future, we should remember 
Emerson’s lines: 


So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 

So near is God to man, 

When duty whispers low: Thou must, 
The soul replies, I can. 


[ 252 ] 


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